Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT council looks set to adopt Verge Valet permanently, despite a low participation rate from residents and “confusion” in apartment blocks.

Although the pre-ordered bulk rubbish collection has been popular with those who’ve used it, a survey found that 58 per cent of people who hadn’t weren’t interested. Less than 20 per cent of Vincent households have ordered a bin, although that gave the council a $70,000 saving from this year’s budget.

In order to pick up the rate of participation, the council is now looking to change collection days to make it easier for people to put things out on the weekend, and increasing the number of pickup days to two a year.

A report to this week’s council briefing said Verge Valet had been used 2993 times over the last financial year, with 453 tonnes of junk collected. Slightly more than 75 per cent of materials were recovered for recycling or reuse, a significant improvement on the old verge collection where about 60 per cent ended up in landfill.

The report said despite the low pick-up, Verge Valet was still value for money as it was positively viewed by those who’d used it.

“It has also effectively addressed the amenity issues and concerns, which were the subject of many community complaints,” the report noted of the mess often left by verge scroungers.

Councillor Nicole Woolfe said she’d received feedback from people living or operating premises with multiple dwellings that Verge Valet wasn’t working well.

The council’s waste and recycling manager Aaron Griffiths acknowledged there’d been some confusion about how many collections they had been allocated, but said better advertising should sort that out.