Questions to be asked about the cost of rubbish

HOW do you feel about putting out a fourth rubbish bin next year and potentially seeing an extra service charge added to your rates notice just to pay for the cost of emptying public bins?

These issues and the 2.75% cap on rates in the coming year will be among the things that are characterising deliberations over councils’ budgets at the moment in the Bass Coast and South Gippsland shires.

Bass Coast Council watcher, Graham Jolly, wants to know what his shire is planning to do with the costs of emptying rubbish bins around shopping centres, on foreshores and in tourist locations after the State Government charged the rules from January 1, 2026.

“Council is going to have to make up its mind what it is going to do with the cost of collecting rubbish in public places, and processing their own waste, now that the state government has said they can’t charge ratepayers through their kerbside waste charge,” said Mr Jolly.

“They can only charge the ratepayer for the cost of picking up their bins and processing the waste that comes directly from those bins,” he said.

Mr Jolly said council used to charge ratepayers, through their waste charge of $618, to cover the cost of picking up street bins and disposing of the council’s own waste.

“If they’re not allowed to do that anymore, there should be a reduction in the waste charge that appears on your rates’ notice but have you ever seen local government reducing the cost of anything? I haven’t.”

Mr Jolly said councils would either have to absorb those costs in their operational budget or introduce an additional line item on people’s rates notices just to pay for public waste collection.

“If they do introduce a special charge for that, they’ll have to go through a community consultation process.”

Mr Jolly said ratepayers were already paying property rates, the emergency services levy and a waste charge on their rates’ notice and they’d hardly like to see another special charge.

“It’s a problem for council, and for the ratepayers but whatever way they go, they shouldn’t be double-dipping by keeping the waste charge as it is or increasing it, and then introducing another fee that’s suppose to cover the cost of emptying public bins.”

There’s a lot at stake with council expecting to collect $18.926 million from the waste services levy this financial year, an increase of 9.3%.

Bass Coast has registered its opposition to the costs associated with introducing a fourth ‘purple-top’ bin for glass collection under section 60 of the state government’s Circular Economy Act but if the government insists, the bins must be rolled out by July 1, 2027.