Northern Beaches Council state-of-the-art bin service receives thousands of complaints
Thousands of complaints have been made to Northern Beaches Council over its multimillion-dollar new ‘smart bin’ service, with more than 23,000 missed bin collections since the contract started in July.
Manly
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Northern Beaches Council is receiving hundreds of complaints a month about its new state-of-the-art bin collection, it can be revealed.
The council has provided figures that show in July and August last year there were on average 2496 complaints per month.
From September to January they dropped to an average of 832 per month.
Councillor Vincent De Luca said the new waste collection had been a disaster and official figures he had from council included 23,888 missed bin collections since the contract started in July and 6,747 requests for old bins to be removed between March and 9 August, 2019.
He is awaiting a request from the council on details of key performance indicators and whether on those grounds the contract can be terminated.
“It’s getting ridiculous,” he said.
“It’s not just taking up the time of councillors, it’s taking up the time of council staff and residents.
“Ratepayers are not getting value for money.”
He said some of the issues include old bins still not being collected nearly a year later.
He said because people could not cope with the smaller sized bins — the 120 litre bins were reduced to 80 litre — they were sold extra ones, defeating the purpose of encouraging recycling.
The council’s own figures show that there were 6624 requests for a second red bin.
Cr De Luca claimed the bins had also caused conflict in the streets with people dumping rubbish in neighbour’s bins and public bins.
“It’s a massive, massive issue,” he said.
Last year the council boasted that the new waste collection service would see the biggest roll out of bins in Australian history.
More than 330,000 new smart bins — they have microchips which link up with technology in 40 state-of-the-art garbage trucks — were delivered to homes across the northern beaches costing tax-payers a one-off payment of $12m.
The technology is meant to ensure bins are not missed and the council is able to track missing and damaged bins.
The waste contract is worth $16.8 million a year over 10 years, with that figure escalated annually over the life of the contract.
Cr Rory Amon coined the phrase #bingate on social media after bins were spotted in landfill, rather than being recycled. At the time the council said bins that accidentally ended up in landfill were retrieved and properly recycled.
But Cr Amon said the whole process had been “fraught with problems from start to present”.
He said the majority of complaints he was receiving were about the on-call bulky goods service, which was not suited to high density areas such as Dee Why.
He said there was also no doubt in his mind there were a number of “defective” bins which was letting in water when it rained
Northern Beaches Council chief executive officer Ray Brownlee said the introduction of the new waste contract in July last year had resulted in savings being returned to many households on the peninsula.
“The waste service continues to improve as it is bedded down,” he said.
“In July — August there was an average of six service requests per 1000 bins, compared with September — January which saw an average of two requests per 1000 bins.
“Council’s contractor URM collects an estimated 416,000 bins on a fortnightly basis across the northern beaches.
“Missed service requests can relate to a number of issues, including contaminated bins, bins placed after a truck has passed as well as a missed service.”
Mr Brownlee said the council continues to work with its contractor URM to identify further improvements that will be implemented over the 10 year life of the contract.