A Perth council has thrown a plan to move to smaller red-lid bins in the trash.
City of Bayswater councillors have pushed back on moving from a fortnightly 240L service to a fortnightly 140L service, citing costs, lack of choice and contamination fears.
The change was part of a funding deal with the Waste Authority in 2020 to help with the rollout of the Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) collection service.
As part of the funding agreement, the City was required to move from a 240L general waste bin to a 140L general waste bin collected fortnightly by June 30, 2026.
Under the plan, residents would be able to request a larger red bin but at an additional cost.
But at the council’s last meeting before this month’s election, Cr Josh Eveson moved that the City reject the downsizing and asked staff to prepare a list of outlining alternative “options that enable residents and ratepayers choice in general waste bin size” by October 2024.
His proposal was supported 8-2.
“There are three key elements that have shaped an alternative … the three Cs: cost, contamination and choice,” Cr Eveson said.
“Cost: the significant cost of almost $2 million to downsize every red lid bin in the city.
“Contamination: the high level of contamination already in our waste is a strong indicator that our city is not ready to downsize our red bin. Whilst there might be some feel-good sentiment, further down the line contaminated waste will fill up the hole in the ground (landfill).
“And lastly choice: council never considered providing households with a choice of bin size. If you probe further on waste, you’ll find that the diversity of waste needs in our community differs greatly it’s not a one size fits all solution.”
Cr Eveson said the city needed to think of “everybody”, not just the “elite” when it came to reducing waste.
“People who only half-fill their bin, it won’t cause them any issues, but the people who are already at max capacity and then go to a smaller bin they have a big problem, and then we’re going to slam those families with more costs to buy another bin,” he said.
“It makes no sense. We have to be thinking about everybody, not just the elite.”
Cr Georgia Johnson wasn’t happy with the motion, saying the smaller bin would be sufficient for most residents.
“It’s in line with where we need to go … it’s not worth mucking around with this because we all know we need to reduce the amount of waste and this (current plan) is an effective way to do this,” she said.
Cr Elli Petersen-Pik had asked for alternatives to be presented to the council by June 2024 instead of October, but councillors said more time was needed to prepare a thorough report on an “important” issue.
The neighbouring Town of Bassendean adopted a three-bin FOGO system in August 2020, becoming the first council north of the river to make the change.
Residents have a 240L green bin collected weekly, a 140L red bin collected fortnightly and a 240L yellow bin collected fortnightly.