Bulky waste removal in Orange could rise from $11.60 to $220.25 - council report

July 15, 2022

Bulky waste in Glenroi in early 2022. Copyright: Orange News Examiner.

By David Fitzsimons

Every household in Orange had to pay an extra $11.60 in their rates for a bulky waste pick up service this year – but less than half of them actually used it.

A new report to Orange City Council questions whether the service should be run again next year considering the tough financial times facing residents.

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The report found that 45 percent of residents offloaded bulky waste to their nature strips to be picked up in February.

“There were 16,838 residential assessments that paid for the bulky waste service, however, the actual number of services [7,604] rendered for each collection area fell well short of the maximum uptake,” the report found.

“At best with 45 percent of the Orange residential rate base utilising the service (with 100 percent of the rate base having paid for the service), one would best describe the service as being utilised at a ‘moderate’ uptake.”

While the number of households using the service and the amount of rubbish collected was up on the previous year that was largely due to mattresses being allowed to be collected this year.

A total of 687 mattresses were picked up.

The report found that only 39 percent of the rubbish collected was able to be recovered for recycling.

It is proposed that if council decides on Tuesday night to go ahead with another special bulky waste pick up it would occur next February.

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The council report suggests an existing user-pays scheme provides an adequate alternative to another special pick-up.

“The current ‘user-pay’ ticket service cost is $220.25 which reflects the actual cost of the service contractor to collect and dispose of two cubic metres of waste,” the report says.

“This results in a more equitable utilisation of the service, which by all accounts is only warranted by a small percentage of the residential rate base on rare occasions.

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“Council may therefore wish to reconsider the application of an across the rate base charge of $11.95 per residential assessment and revert to the current contract provision of a ‘user-pay’ ticket system for removal of bulky waste as and when required by potential users.”

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