Less bins, higher costs proposed as part of Kimbriki’s plans to ‘future proof waste disposal’
FOUR bins would be reduced to three under a plan by the Kimbriki tip to process the peninsula’s household waste, instead of it being trucked to western Sydney.
Manly
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FOUR bins would be reduced to three under a plan by the Kimbriki tip to process the peninsula’s household waste, instead of it being trucked to western Sydney.
And for the first time, residents could be forced to separate their food scraps from non-perishables such as baby wipes to create compost for resale.
Green waste and food scraps would be dumped in the same bin and there would only be one recycling bin.
It is unclear what size the bins would be.
The plan could cost ratepayers $2 more a week, or as resident Brian Halstead put it, “an additional $10 million per year” across the peninsula.
Kimbriki and Northern Beaches Council bosses have stressed the cost could be less and that a new waste system was needed because of shrinking landfill.
Mr Halstead spoke at the Northern Beaches Council meeting when a bid by Kimbriki to put out a tender for a new resource recovery facility was accepted by administrator Dick Persson.
Mr Halstead called for more transparency over costs and questioned why the move needed to happen while the council was in administration.
“I am not sure people will be wanting to put their bits and scraps in a garden bin,” he said yesterday. “Why does it have to be done now? Is it because there aren’t any councillors to say no?”
But Kimbriki’s chief executive Ben Connell said he had allowed for $2 per household as an extreme, but hoped it would be less.
“We can then go back to the council and either say it is cost-effective and sustainable, or we will say it is pretty pricey, but there are environmental benefits,” he said. “It is really too early to say what costs could be.”
He said something needed to be done to “future-proof the disposal of waste”, with Belrose landfill closed and no new landfills scheduled for Sydney.
Mr Persson said: “It’s time we took action to recycle this material locally, saving landfill space and transport impacts.
“The new facility has been under careful consideration for many years and could see a reduction of 200,000 tonnes in greenhouse gases from waste transportation, the equivalent of taking 42,280 cars off the road for one year.”
He said now was the best time to move forward with the plan because “progress of the project has been delayed for some time due to the differences between” the former councils.
Mr Connell said the final details would not be known until a tender was awarded, which would be early to mid next year.
“We want a private organisation to come in and build a whole facility,” he said. “It would be a large building, maybe two buildings where everything is processed.”
Waste would be processed indoors and the air treated to reduce odour.
Avalon resident Judy Zieren said “for people who don’t have a compost bin, it would be a disaster” and questioned the addition of food to the greens waste bin.
“I wouldn’t want that in my bin, it would be stinky,” she said.
While she believed the move for Kimbriki to process waste on the peninsula was a positive step, she wasn’t willing to part with her bin.
The council, which owns 96 per cent of Kimbriki after the merger of Manly, Warringah and Pittwater, has touted it as a positive result of the amalgamation. Mosman Council owns the other 4 per cent of Kimbriki.
THE DETAILS:
The details of the final system are not finalised and will be part of the tender process.
Currently, residents have four bins:
- Red lid — general waste
· Yellow lid — co-mingled containers
· Blue lid — paper and cardboard
· Green lid — green waste
The new three bin system should be:
· Green lid — green waste and food waste (organic) — this will be a weekly collection
· Red lid — general waste (non-organic waste)
· Yellow lid — recyclables (paper & cardboard and containers)
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