March 27, 2018
Recent media reports that 20 Queensland councils plan to introduce $2500 fines for residents who leave their wheelie bins on the kerb longer than 24 hours are unlikely to apply in the South Burnett.
However, residents who overfill their wheelie bins or load them with more than the 75kg weight limit collection trucks are able to lift may find their garbage is not collected that particular week.
And residents who let their bins get excessively smelly or leave them out for such a long time their neighbours complain may get a call from Council staff asking them to fix things up.
But any concerns the Council will start hitting residents with $2500 fines for not taking their bins off the street in 24 hours are “far-fetched”, according to South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell.
The Council is currently advertising its intention to introduce a new local law covering waste management.
Mayor Campbell said the new local law will take the place of existing State laws that are expiring on July 1.
It will be the sixth local law the Council has introduced since it was formed a decade ago.
The new law will formally define the areas where the Council will run a waste collection service, and the procedures that will be used to select a successful tenderer to carry out the work.
The local law will also empower Council officers to act against residents who abuse the waste collection system by giving the Council power to issue fines, if necessary.
However, because the current system runs with very few issues and the new law simply defines the waste collection system already in place, the Mayor believes there will be no substantial changes.
“This is just an administrative process that all Queensland councils are being asked to carry out,” Mayor Campbell said.
“It’s come about because some Councils still run their own in-house garbage collection service and there has been pressure from waste industry operators to open up the market.
“However, the South Burnett Regional Council closed its own in-house waste collection system many years ago and moved to using contractors, so there will be no change in that area.”
Mayor Campbell said the overwhelming majority of town residents used their wheelie bin service without any problems, and a small handful who didn’t usually corrected their behaviour when asked.
“Personally, if I was going away on holiday for a week or two and the garbage collection was taking place a day or two after I left, I’d probably put the bin out myself,” he said.
“But I’d ask my neighbours if they could put it out of sight after it was collected to avoid advertising that I wasn’t home.”
