Green Waste and Illegal Dumping

Currently green waste collected at Redland City Council's Transfer Station is transferred to Rocky Point (near Beenleigh) to generate green electricity. Redland Council does not receive any revenue from this except the fee at the gate paid by residents.

In the most recent Budget adopted by “Melva and her new team of councillors”, dump fees were increased dramatically, and a trial Waste Reduction Incentive Scheme was implemented to offer something in return for these increases and to assist with reducing the community's waste. The budget for this trial is $918,940 this financial year.

This issue was raised in a committee meeting debate yesterday and it became blatantly clear to me that even some Councillor's did not understand how this Waste Reduction Incentive Scheme operates. There are currently two incentives :

1. 
   
   Downsizing a 240l bin to a 140l bin OR;
2. 
   
   Getting a $16 refund for two trips to the transfer station (both receipts must be attached before a refund is given).

The debate predominantly centred around Incentive No.2; with questioning about the requirement to wait until a resident has two receipts before they can be cashed in.

The reason offered by the General Manager was that it costs Council $32 every time this refund is processed! That's right, it costs ratepayers $32 every time this $16 refund is processed???

I argued that if green waste is such a benefit to the environment by taking pressure off the traditional coal powered electricity – the best incentive Council could offer is in fact not to charge at the gate at all. Makes good sense to me!

The debate continued with arguments about illegal dumping with insinuations that I was stirring up “local hysteria” because I did not support introducing or doubling the gate fees at our dumps. Figures of illegal dumping over this term of Council were presented. Unfortunately, the recording of incidents of illegal dumping only began at my request after the introduction of gate fees in December 08, and of course, Councillors who supported this extra gate fee are now saying that the incidents of illegal dumping have always been this high. I will let the public be the judge of this as I continue to receive numerous complaints about illegal dumping in our bushland areas, our parks, charity bins and on private property, including building sites. In fact, the only incidents of illegal dumping that are recorded by Council are those that occur on Council property. I can report for the month of July it cost $8181.63 for council officers to collect and dispose 61.47 tonnes of illegally dumped waste on Council property alone. See the below link:

http://web01.redland.qld.gov.au/robo/Minutes_Agendas/July_Sept10/MinutesAndAgendasJuly-September_2010.htm

I have requested figures to be presented to Council on the % increase of contamination of yellow recycle bins for the last five years, to measure if the introduction and subsequent doubling of dump fees has had any impact on this also.

We should be encouraged to contact Council on every occasion that you find illegal dumping to ensure that these future statistics can be used to influence better decisions in the future.


ADDITIONAL NOTE:
I have added the chart distributed to Councillors do provide clarity. This chart reflects ONLY the REPORTED incidents of illegal dumping to Council.
It seems that my concerns are misunderstood by some Councillors (see post below).  The illegal dumping of green waste is the least detrimental to the environment.  My references to illegal dumping include all types. Particularly, general waste and building materials and especially asbestos.  I hope this assists in seeing the WHOLE picture.