Organics bin ban thrown out, mayor confirms go-ahead |Timeline

Administrator Michael Kneipp made the official decision to approve a three-bin system in Dubbo in July.

The bin will be introduced mid-2018.

Under the current 10-year contract, the organics bin will be weekly, while the recycling and general waste will be collected on alternating weeks. Those who want their general waste collected every week have to pay an extra $40.

Cr Shields campaigned during the election to ‘Ban the Bin’. He compared council to North Korea and campaigned strongly for the decision to be made by elected representatives.

However, Cr Shields said while his slogan was initially to ‘Ban the Bin’, once the contact had been signed he resolved to instead ‘Save Our Weekly Garbage Collection’, knowing the contract could not be undone.

Cr Shields said the three-bin system would definitely go ahead.

The council staff had been going over the green bin contract, he said and while it was still going ahead, the mayor said he was looking into having the contract changed so everyone’s general waste would be collected weekly.

“My position on them that I had during the election hasn’t changed,” he said.

“There's certainly going to be a lot of people who are still angry about it. It's bad enough if it had gone through council but as an unelected representative he shouldn't have done that, it was absolutely disgraceful.

“The best that I can do is have them take some of the nasty sharp edges off a very, very bad policy.”

When he made the decision to approve the organics bin, Mr Kneipp defended his position saying it simply came down to economics.

"There is one argument that stands up - this is the lowest cost option for the ratepayers of Dubbo Regional Council," he said.

Mr Kneipp said he didn’t think the ratepayers would thank him if he gave back $4.36 million in grants from the NSW government to introduce the bins and construct the Dubbo Regional Organic Processing Plant.