Junee’s business community has described council’s new bin collections as “a mistake”.
Beginning July 16, collections will be scheduled twice weekly.
The 120 litre general garbage will be collected on Monday morning, and 240 litre recycling or green waste will alternate fortnightly on either a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.
For residential areas, the services will mean little more than remembering to take the bins out two mornings a week instead of one.
But hotels, restaurants, and other businesses that produce a greater volume of waste will have to pay a five per cent increase.
That translates to a yearly additional $178.50 per garbage, and $207.90 per recycling or green waste beyond the one free per week.
“Essentially, we’ve had the services halved and if we want that extra service that we were getting for free, we’ll now have to pay for it,” said Business and Trades Association president Tony Butt.
He is prepared to pay a private company to collect his additional bins each week.
“It’s actually cheaper than council’s contractor,” Mr Butt said.
Council entered the seven year agreement in January that saw collections swapped from a local to a national company.
“The decision was made to streamline the service,” said council’s acting general manager Keith White.
“Our landfill rubbish has to be delivered to Wagga by 3:30 in the afternoon so, working backwards from that time, factoring in the size of the trucks and the amount of rubbish they can carry, this was the most effective way to do it.”
But if the town’s 180 businesses opt into paying their own private contractors, Mr Butt is worried it will not be an effective cost reduction to ratepayers.
“They’ll still be paid the same amount even though they won’t be picking up all the bins,” Mr Butt said.
“If all the businesses in the town go private it’s just going to mean an easier time for council’s collectors.
“I think they made a mistake changing contractors, I’ve told council that a couple times.”
