Councillor suspects residents of selling worm farms given away for free under waste initiative
A popular scheme which gave away free worm farms has been criticised as costly, with one Northern Beaches councillor suggesting their good deed had been taken advantage of.
Manly
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Free worm farms given away to northern beaches residents as part of a council waste initiative are being sold on eBay according to one councillor.
The popular scheme, which costs about $200,000 has been criticised as costly and misleading by Liberal Cr Stuart Sprott, who suggested residents were selling them online.
“I have seen worm farms up on eBay, etc. for sale by residents,” Cr Stuart Sprott said in the most recent council meeting.
The Manly Daily approached Cr Sprott about his statement but the councillor said he’d meant it to be a question.
“I saw a worm farm on eBay or Facebook. I can’t remember but I thought, are people finding them too hard to set up?
“I don’t know... That’s why I asked the question.”
He also said residents were “misled” because they had to pay for their own worms after getting the free farms.
The council is currently attempting to gain more funds from the State Government so the program can be renewed.
Cr Sprott said he didn’t agree with the council’s decision to spend hundreds of thousands on worm farms.
“It kicked off but they ran out really quickly, within two weeks,” he said.
“I lobbied to get money from the State Government for the container deposit scheme and $800,000 came from the money we backdated from containers we already collected.
“I managed to save the community $800,000 but the mayor used a portion of that to buy the worm farms.
“I get they’re trying to do the right thing but I think we could have done it a different way.”
Northern Beaches Mayor Michael Regan told a different story.
“Cr Sprott voted against the mayoral minute. He did no lobbying.” he told the Manly Daily.
“We had access to an additional $200,000 in funds in the waste budget and council resolved to spend those funds on the worm farms for residents.
“The worm farms were hugely successful, we have a waiting list. We’ve now applied to get additional funding for more worm farms from the waste levy the State Government collects from all councils. We contributed $8 million last year to the waste levy.”