Hi Jeanette,
Penrith City Council has a contamination service charge. Where it is found that an Organics bin has been contaminated with waste (other than acceptable waste for that bin) on three occasions through Council’s Contamination Management Program, and the owner and occupier have been informed and advised on each occasion, then a Large Weekly (Contamination) Service shall apply.
When the service is changed to this contamination service there is an additional annual charge of $575 on top of the standard $399 annual charge because the property is given a large red bin that is collected weekly (compared to a small red lid bin collected fortnightly) and the green bin is taken away. This usually gives them an incentive to sort their waste more appropriately.
The property either stays on the service, they change their bin services by ordering extra bins to meet their capacity requirements and/or they agree to better sort their waste.
We try to visit the owner/tenant before any change is made to introduce the contamination service as it is our intention to educate and not to penalise.
I have not had much involvement with the service so I have checked our records to see what kind of correspondence we do. It looks like most contamination is done by tenants(not owners) which adds a level of complexity since it is obviously the owner that pays the bill. We cover this off by sending a letter to the owner asking for their assistance and advising that “This increase would be directly applied to the rates notice and you may wish to pursue cost recovery from your tenant should this occur.”
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Matthew
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