HOUSEHOLDS will have to wait until as late as July next year for the new green organic waste bins collection, despite ratepayers beginning to pay the $80 fee.
HOUSEHOLDS will have to wait until as late as July next year for the new green organic waste bins collection, despite ratepayers beginning to pay the $80 fee for the service this July.
The service will mean all households receive a third bin for a weekly collection of organic material like food scraps, garden and lawn clippings.
Enterprise services director Stephen Sykes said money from the green waste fees was starting to be used now construction had started on the landfill.
“We’ll probably start the rollout of bins in April or May it takes quite some time to deliver 14,000 bins,” he said.
“It’s a logistical challenge.
“Managing wastes is a very significant part of protecting community health.”
The bins will feature a GPS tracking device in the handles allowing council to track their location, but the system will not dramatically increase the cost of the wheelie bins.
“It adds about four or five cents for the life of the bin which is a very cheap way of tracking them,” Mr Sykes said.
The green waste will be trucked to the Ophir Road site for shredding before it is taken to Euchareena Road for processing in a tunnel composting facility and sold as bags of compost for $35 per cubic metre.
Some coastal areas operating a similar green waste system have halved the size of red garbage bins and doubled the size of the yellow recycling bin but Mr Sykes said Orange’s bins would remain unchanged until at least 2015 when a new contractor takes over waste processing.
“There will be opportunities to have larger recycling bins, we’ll be looking at the options,” Mr Sykes said.
The $80 green waste fee covers $60 for the bin collection and $20 for a organics equalisation levy to cover the $300,000 shortfall between processing costs and revenue the council will receive from sales of compost and organic chip.
The current green waste sticker collection, which allows residents to purchase a book of stickers offering 30 collections for $52, will be phased out from June 2013.
