As incoming mayor, the one issue that is consistently raised with me is the matter of the third waste bin. Like the bulk of the community, I am keen to get this matter sorted. Organics, green waste, mixed waste, recycling - the subject raises the ire of much of the community. Personally, the decision to introduce the third bin made me furious. I thought it was atrocious that the decision was made at the time it was and fervently argued the decision should have been left for the incoming democratically elected council. That didn’t happen. Now we are stuck with this legally binding contract and I intend to ensure council takes out the proverbial fine-tooth comb and reviews the contract in detail. A primary role of local government is to be reflective of the wishes of its community. The period of administration failed in this regard and I am keen to set up your council with a focus on being driven by community input.
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I want to make sure everybody knows the cost of including a weekly general garbage collection service and for the elected council to make a decision about what should happen before this service is introduced.
To be clear the contract that council has entered into is:
- A weekly collection of organics (including lawn and garden clippings, fruit and veggie scraps, meats, leftovers, paper towel/serviettes/tissues),
- Fortnightly recycling (including glass, aluminium, tin and steel cans, cardboard and paper, plastic bottles, milk cartons and so on) and,
- Fortnightly general waste (items that can’t otherwise be disposed of such as plastic bags, nappies, pet waste and kitty litter, foam and polystyrene).
The service area covers some 16,000 households in the built up areas of Dubbo and Wellington as well as Wongarbon, Brocklehurst and Geurie. An optional weekly general waste collection is also being offered for an additional fee above the Domestic Waste Management Charge that will be applied for the standard three bin service. This tender is officially called the tender for Netwaste Regional Waste Services and has been entered with J&R Richards as the successful tenderer. The council decision to prepare and enter this tender is legally binding. Any attempt to simply tear up the tender contract is just not feasible. The costs in terms of fees and legal costs would undoubtedly be extensive probably running into millions of dollars. This would not be in the best interests of the community.
However, I made a very clear commitment to the public before being elected as mayor that every avenue for modifying the contract should be explored. I have had discussions with council’s staff on this matter and have requested the general manager to ascertain the cost of a weekly general waste collection service being provided as opposed to the fortnightly general waste collection included in the adopted tender. This change in service levels would be a potential variation to the contract. In simplified legal terms a variation is an agreement to alter some of the terms of the contract. A variation may either increase or decrease the contract sum as a result of actions emanating from the variation.
It is important to mention here that the Netwaste Regional Waste Services Tender has three distinct components. One is the collection services as described above, then there is the organics processing services including the construction of the Dubbo Regional Organics Processing Plant as well as recycling processing services.
The total tender amount agreed to is $36M based on a 10-year-contract period. At this early stage it is expected that it will take at least a month before the initial reviews would be received and further discussions can be held with council staff. It is also impossible to speculate on how viable a potential variation would be in terms of cost and if this is a viable proposition for the council and the community. While this matter continues to be investigated I will be keeping the community informed of any developments and the potential for this to be raised at a council meeting in the future.