Three bin system kicks off next month

Murrumbidgee Council’s draft operational plan for 2023/24 states the decision to introduce a kerbside recycling service to Jerilderie was in response to extensive community feedback.

General manager John Scarce said the council has had “plenty of requests” from the community to operate a recycling service over the years.

He said it had only become possible since the formation of Murrumbidgee Council, through the mergers of the former Murrumbidgee and Jerilderie shires.

“There's been absolutely nothing but acceptance and praise from absolutely everybody; there hasn't been a negative comment about it at all,” he said.

“We've been going to the community probably for 18 months, and you have to spend 12 months or more in doing a change to this type of service to make sure that the community is informed and to make sure that on day one they are putting the exact right bit of garbage in the bin.”

The FOGO bins are also a requirement of the NSW Government, with all councils given until 2030 to implement a household bin service to collect FOGO from the kerb.

Mr Scarce said because of this requirement and the merger, the council was able to bring Jerilderie online with the recycling at the same time they introduced FOGO, “because we started to have the economies of scale and will be doing everything in house”.

There will be no charge for the new FOGO bins, thanks to a grant to council from the NSW Government.

“They'll be delivered at no cost to the community,” Mr Scarce said.

“But the other good thing, because we got that $130,000 grant, we were able to buy the capital costs of those bins without dipping into any ratepayers funds.

“All of the bins are still owned by Murrumbidgee Council, and so they're our responsibility.”

Ratepayers will, however, be charged an estimated $330 annually to cover costs of the council’s three-stream waste and recycling collection services.

“It's just $330 for the three bins, and then it should go on noting that additional bins cost more money,” Mr Scarce said.

“So the ratepayer pays that ($330) to us and we cover all the costs of operating the truck, paying for the driver and taking all of the recycling to Wagga, paying for the processing of the recycling in Wagga, and taking all of the FOGO to worm tech in Carrathool and paying for the processing of that, and for taking the general waste to our landfill and the cost of going to landfill, which is expensive as well.”

“It's not just digging a hole any more. You've got so many requirements to bury stuff.”

Mr Scarce said the “biggest issue” with the three bin system will be contamination.

“If somebody puts garbage in the recycling or they put recycling in the FOGO bin, for instance, that's classified as contamination,” he said.

“Each of those processes have an extra charge if they get contaminated material, because they are the ones who have to manually sort that.”

Although individuals will not be directly penalised, Mr Scarce said the council will, and this means everyone’s annual rate of $330 will go up.

“We have to cover all of those costs if there's high contamination around because it's a chargeback sort of thing,” he said.

“So we're just stressing that if anybody is in doubt, put it into the garbage bin that goes to landfill.

“That's probably our biggest educational message.

“If you're in doubt of which bin it goes in, put it in the red lid bin and give council a call for the next time, so you learn for next time.”