The city’s householders can count on a kerbside recycling service by July after the council gave their approval in the next step of the process and chose a company to provide the service at Monday’s ordinary council meeting.

That decision will see a maximum charge of $247 added to the council’s draft revenue policy for 2010-11, but residents may not have that whole bill to pay.

Council also yesterday revealed that it had accepted the tender of JR Richards & Sons for the provision of the service.

The 10-year tender will involve JR Richards & Sons collecting recyclables at the kerbside and processing them at the Visy Materials Recoverable Facility at Smithfield in Sydney.

“Twenty five per cent of the city’s domestic waste is expected to be diverted from landfill with the introduction of the fortnightly service in the Dubbo Local Government Area by July 1, 2010,” Cr Smith said.

Council’s decision to proceed with kerbside recycling comes despite three-quarters of people who made submissions to the council being against the kerbside recycling at the proposed additional charge.

During the 28-day public exhibition period, 20 people lodged submissions.

Several local pensioners said they were in favour of kerbside recycling, but not at that price.

Residents of the council area’s villagers also expressed dissatisfaction at being forced to pay for an unwanted service.

Cr Smith attempted to calm community angst yesterday with some good news.

“We believe there are some opportunities to reduce the charge,” he said.

Council would review the number of recycling drop-off centres across the city and its annual kerbside clean-up in an effort to bring down the actual charge to less than the maximum charge, he said.

In its submission the Dubbo Ratepayers and Residents Association was also in favour of the proposal but not the price.

It suggested to the council it consider a user-pay system,

that the increase in the annual charge be limited to $50 and that pensioners be given a substantial discount.

Cr Smith said the council had made provision for pensioners, but would not pursue a user-pay model.

faye.wheeler@ruralpress. com