STIRLING ratepayers are being slugged a full recycling and waste fee in rates, even though the council has recycled virtually nothing for more than a year.
Sending 84,000 tonnes of waste straight to landfill has saved the council a whopping $1.6 million, but none of it has gone back to ratepayers. Every month since last August the council has been trucking 7000 tonnes of waste to the tip, after the Atlas recycling facility shut down.
The change saves the council $20 per tonne.
In 2013 ratepayers were still being slugged a $278 waste and recycling fee, the same they paid the year before when 65 per cent of waste was recycled.
Mayor Giovanni Italiano says if the council hadn’t pocketed the “surplus”, it would have to impose a levy for an $11.5 million three-bin recycling system that’s set to start in July.
“Ratepayers were informed of the introduction of the three-bin kerbside collection system via a direct mail out,” he says.
Earlier this year council staff forecast that ratepayers will have to pay an extra $37 in their 2015 rates to subsidise the three-bin system.
This year, ratepayers are being slugged $300.93 in recycling and waste fees, again with hardly any going towards recycling. The council blamed the $23 hike on the WA government’s higher landfill levy.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK
Perth Voice Interactive 
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