[Jason Symons]

Afternoon fellow professionals,

For those that attended the conference, I hope everyone had a great tine.

Council is thinking about introducing an annual charge to be raised on a rate account which will be incurred by households that contaminate their recyclable bins by including things such as plastic bags, vegetation, disposable nappies and so on.

I was wondering what other Council’s have implemented this, and if so under which section of the Act the charge is allowed.

Thanks

Jason

[Robert Hay]

Hi Jason

Good to talk to you today.

As discussed there is no provision under 501 to charge a fee such as this. The only thing I can think of is a charge under section 608 and it gets issued as a sundry debtor to possibly the Body Corp. We do this for our green waste bins.

Robert

[Andrew Butcher]

Hi Jason
We looked at this at Campbelltown a year or so ago due to significant contaminations mostly in our public housing estates.
It was in our fees and charges under significant pressure from our waste unit until we raised it with the elected council. The council agreed that once a recycling bin was placed in the public space it could be contaminated by any member of the public, therefore we would not be able to enforce a charge.
We include the costs incurred as part of our reasonable cost calculation and waste continue to monitor and write to people regarding their recycling practices.
I agree with Robert that there are no provisions to add to the annual rates and charges notice and may only be raised as a fee via sundry debtors.
I hope this is helpful.
Regards,
Andrew

[Jason Symons]

Hi Andrew & Robert,

Great to speak to you two as well, and thanks for the input and advice. I think it may have been enough to turn the tide, or at least turn it to invoices being raised. Especially when I mentioned the need to remove the charge prior to any 603 certs being issued, or sales/transfers being processed.

Thanks again for your help.

Jason

[Darryl Telfer]

Technically you could charge for contaminated recycling under s502 but (actually its a big BUT) as previously mentioned its just not viable (can’t prove who contaminated the recycling once bins are on the street) so would be more trouble than value.
Efforts would be best focused on community education – with messages including the cost of contamination perhaps.

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