Perth Voice Interactive

THE three-bin “FOGO” system is scheduled to be rolled out in Vincent in October 2020 after unanimous support from councillors this week.

The third bin is for food and garden organics, which on average is about 55 per cent of the waste in a resident’s bin.

Currently the organic waste gets shipped to the tip where it rots and produces methane gas, but under the FOGO system the organic waste gets turned into compost and mulch.

Vincent council estimates it will cost about $1.4 million to introduce FOGO and running costs will be $43,000 per year, but over time it could be cheaper than the current system.

The one-off spend includes the cost of the new bins, along with the cost of employing a full-time “education officer” to manage the transition.

The staff report to councillors lists “community acceptance” as one of the main risks and says it’s essential to educate people on what to put in each bin to prevent contamination.

Once FOGO is established, industry professionals estimate the cost of garbage disposal could be around $80 to $100 a tonne, saving Vincent council $190,000 a year.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole says “we’re doing this in an incredibly cautious and thorough matter” and there’ll be plenty of consultation with residents over the exact details.

They’re hoping to get state government grants to lower the transition cost.

FOGO waste gets collected in a little “kitchen caddy”, which is used to transport the organic waste to the new third bin outside.

Under the new system residents will get a 240-litre lime green FOGO bin collected weekly, a recycling bin collected fortnightly, and a little 140-litre red-lidded bin that takes waste that won’t go in FOGO, which is also collected fortnightly. Apartment blocks might need shared bins.

by DAVID BELL

A LOCAL resident who’s also the CEO of a southern council about to incinerate its waste, says Vincent council shouldn’t bother with FOGO.

Stephen Cain’s day job is heading up Cockburn council, but he fronted Vincent’s public question time on Tuesday as a resident to voice his concerns about the three-bin system.

His plea fell on deaf ears, and afterwards councillors unanimously voted to roll out FOGO in 2020.

“The City of Vincent is making a mistake with this option,” Mr Cain says.

Armed with a sheet of facts and figures he argued the cost would be huge and there would be too many downsides.

Cockburn council has a third bin, but it only takes garden waste. The FOGO bin would accept food too.

He says processing just the garden waste can be done quite cheaply, at about $65 a tonne.

“There’s a ready market for that … but to get the food out is very expensive,” Mr Cain said.

He says a better option is to take the non-garden waste and put it through a waste-to-energy incinerator. W2E incinerators are pretty common overseas and he says the modern techniques are very environmentally friendly.

Economical

“All of that energy is regained, and you only end up with 5 per cent of the residual product going to landfill,” Mr Cain said.

“It’s a very economical and a very environmentally friendly alternative.”

Vincent’s business case for the new system states the general waste bin is planned to only be collected every two weeks. FOGO is collected every week, but anything that can’t go in that bin will languish for up to a fortnight,

“If you’re a young family with children, you’re going to have two weeks’ worth of nappies in your bin,” Mr Cain says.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole said the council had investigated the waste-to-energy option, but it was further down the “waste hierarchy”, which advocated re-use of waste via composting, before resorting to recovering energy from it.

In February the state government announced a new waste strategy calling for “all Perth and Peel households to move to the three-bin FOGO system by 2025”, using “financial mechanisms”, which could be incentives to adopt the system or steeper levies for every tonne sent to landfill.

Ms Cole says they’ll ultimately have to go FOGO and adopting it early gives them plenty of time to consult with locals and iron out any issues.

Mr Cain says the state government does not have a mechanism to enforce FOGO, and if a council’s already sending their waste to a W2E plant come 2025, then stiff landfill levies will have little impact on them.

by DAVID BELL

THIS year’s Autumn River Festival will be scaled back after Lotterywest pulled funding.

For the past three years Bayswater council has got a $20,000 Lotterywest grant, almost half the cost of the festival.

But this year Lotterywest said it had already doled out enough cash in Bayswater, citing events such as the Ninja Warrior Park project, the Avon Descent and the Baysie Arts Festival.

Baysy also missed a revised deadline for funding submissions.

City staff say there will probably be fewer carnival rides and marquees at the festival because of the cuts.

Officers are also proposing giving away council merchandise already lying around the office instead of fruit as another cost-cutting measure.

Cr Georgia Clarke said Lotterywest had “changed the goalposts” on the council.

“I think this is a fantastic event, it’s been going on for years,” she said at the February 26 meeting.

“It’s a real shame that Lotterywest doesn’t think it’s appropriate to continue that support.

“This is the first I’ve ever heard of them expanding out the [submission] timeframes from three months to five months, and then saying ‘you’ve already had your pot of money’.”

Cr Catherine Ehrhardt wanted to hold a council workshop to find a way to deliver the event at its original $48,000 budget.

Cr Ehrhardt said they’d already scrimped and saved to get the budget down.

“To chop that in half again for one of our premiere events – I can’t support that,” she said.

Councillors Clarke, Stephanie Grey and mayor Dan Bull agreed, but were outvoted by the rest of the council who endorsed the revised budget of $26,000.

by DAVID BELL

PEOPLE in Maylands town centre will no longer have to cross their legs after Bayswater council approved a new public toilet near Seventh Avenue bridge.

There’s no outhouse within 350m of the Maylands train station and locals have been complaining for nearly a decade about people peeing and defecating there.

But Marie Havila, who is redeveloping the nearby Maylands post office on Whatley Crescent into a wine bar, is not happy about the location of the new loo.

Ms Havila claims she wasn’t consulted about the toilet, and only found out about it on the morning of the council meeting.

Her husband Bruce said the corner is a gateway into town: “It’s going to be a beacon to thousands of people a day, and do you want them coming over the bridge and saying ‘will you look at that beautiful re-pointed building,’ and seeing a public toilet sitting right in proximity only 15m away from where people are eating and drinking,” Mr Havila said.

“I just don’t think it’s a great idea.”

The council initially wanted to install the toilet at the train station, but the Public Transport Authority repeatedly refused the request, citing concerns about who would maintain the loo and provide security.

Bayswater eventually voted to locate the toilet about 100m from the station, on state government land at the bridge, and got $140,000 in state funding.

A 2015 bridge sculpture, made out of old railway sleepers from the original wooden bridge, will have to be moved to accommodate the new dunny.

Councillor Catherine Ehrhardt, who worked with Maylands MP Lisa Baker on the toilet project, told the council meeting: “We’ve been trying to work with the PTA for nine long years to try and get permission to put a toilet on their land, because that is the ideal location … every step of the way they have said ‘no’.

“Yes, it’s not the first choice, but we’re not going to get our first choice.”

Councillors Chris Cornish and Elli Petersen-Pik wanted to hold off and find another spot for the loo, but they were out-voted.

Mayor Dan Bull said a toilet was “sorely needed” and even if they did did further consultation and chose another location there would always be detractors.

by DAVID BELL

VINCENT mayor Emma Cole says she copped “horrible abuse” this week following a media report that misled people into thinking her council wanted to ditch its Australia Day citizenship ceremonies.

Last Friday, The West Australian ran a story under the headline “Council’s Jan 26 fury” based on a letter Ms Cole wrote to citizenship minister David Coleman arguing against new rules forcing councils to hold the ceremonies on Australia Day and Australian Citizenship Day.

Ms Cole said her letter simply tried to point out that the existing arrangements were working well and there was no need to change anything.

But the West’s story gave the distinct impression Vincent was unhappy with Australia Day ceremonies, sparking a torrent of abuse on social media.

“I stopped looking because it was so horrible,” Ms Cole said.

“It was my first genuine experience of horrible trolling, which flowed over to people private messaging me horrible abuse.”

Ms Cole said Vincent had no plans to move its Australia Day ceremony, and wouldn’t without a thorough consultation process.

“I didn’t want the Vincent community to think I was somehow championing a cause without going to the community, and asking ‘what are your thoughts, what are your sentiments, because I honestly don’t know what the community sentiment is’,” she said.

Mr Coleman said councils that ditch their Australia Day ceremonies would be stripped of the right to hold them.

“While most councils already hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, becoming an Australian on our national day is a great privilege and I want more people to have that opportunity.”

The rules are set to come into effect in the second half of this year.

In her letter, Ms Cole had pointed out how few people had even heard of Australian Citizenship Day, which is on September 17.

She also noted that this year, ACD fell on a council meeting date, and not being a public holiday having to hold ceremonies could be a “significant disruption to council business”.

by DAVID BELL

AN exhibition about the world’s largest remaining temperate woodland aims to gain formal recognition and protection from mining for one of Western Australia’s least-understood environments.

The Wilderness Society has long advocated against mining in the Great Western Woodlands, an area that runs from the Nullarbor to the Wheatbelt and is considered a biodiversity hotspot for its eucalypts, 3000-odd flowering plant species and variety of fauna. There is currently a proposal to clear 392 hectares for a lithium mine near Southern Cross.

The society has put together an exhibition that mixes art and photography from professional, amateurs, junior photographers and winners from its Great Western Woodlands photography competition, which will be held at the City Arts Space on the corner of Lake and James Streets in Northbridge from March 14-17.

It’s open 6-8pm for opening night, 10am-4pm on Friday and Saturday and 10am-2pm on Sunday.

Wilderness Society state director Kit Sainsbury says there’s nowhere on earth like the woodlands.

“It supports biodiversity that keeps out climate in check,” Ms Sainsbury said.

“But the Great Western Woodlands needs formal recognition, not more mining.

“We hope this exhibition will encourage more awareness of these trees and soils store 950 million tonnes of carbon; more than Australia emits in an entire year.”

by SHREYA PILO

THE historic mini music festival Neon Picnic returns to Hyde Park on Saturday March 23. RTR’s Neon Picnic was the precursor to In The Pines festival, which has been held every year at UWA’s Somerville Auditorium since 1994.

The first Neon Picnics was held in the late 1980s when the radio station was still called 6UWA, and the final one was held at the Fremantle Arts Centre in 1994. To mark the station’s 40th birthday in 2017, the Neon Picnic festival was resurrected with a live broadcast from Hyde Park.

This year’s festival features Argentinian groover Jere Sosa, indy pop locals The Struggling Kings, saxophonist quartet Meraki and reggae jams from Zarm. Neon Picnic is at the Amphitheatre in Hyde Park from 11am-7pm. It’s free and there’s snacks and stuff for kids, and a bar for adults.

PROMINENT Beaufort Street restaurants Cantina 663 and Red Cray closed last week sparking fears the area has entered another slump.

The closures come in the wake of news reports that some commercial rents on Beaufort St are higher than those in the CBD.

Extortionate rents, too many franchises, and customers spending less have all been blamed for businesses going bust on Beaufort Street, while Red Cray said it was down to “circumstances that were out of our control”.

Perth MP John Carey, who founded the Beaufort Street Network, is imploring landlords to reduce rents to ensure a good mix of franchises and independent businesses.

As the Voice went to print he was due to speak at a Property Council of WA event about keeping town centres vibrant and activated.

He said the current situation on Beaufort Street “is a clear demonstration that if you do not have the right commercial property mix, then it can have devastating consequences for a street.

“I understand property owners aren’t running a charity and they want strong financial returns, but their choices about elevating rent to a very high level, and their choices about who they’re [leasing to] – which is franchises – has serious consequences for Beaufort Street as a destination.”

He says too many franchises could turn Beaufort Street into just another shopping centre with the same old brands.

Mr Carey said he’d spoken to one Beaufort Street trader who was planning to relocate to the CBD as they could get a cheaper lease there.

He says he has faith in the Beaufort Street Network, chaired by Joshua O’Keefe, which was finalising an action plan that involved “activation (doing stuff on the streets), advocacy (facilitating conversations with government on behalf of businesses and residents) and promotion (spreading the word of Beaufort Street to the wider population)”.

The BSN was traditionally focused on the strip south of Walcott Street, but it’s looking to extend its influence into the northern area which is part of Stirling council.

by DAVID BELL