So I have been noticing all around Newcastle and the Hunter lately that we have become the land of locked gates. With gates sealing off all these old and cool 4x4 tracks (including state forest and other public access land). The signs on the gates say it is to prevent illegal dumping. Then yesterday I went to offload some general house waste at the tip. A Colorado tray half full of cardboard, plastic tubs, a mat and some broken toys etc. It was $48 bucks. I thought to myself cheaper to dump in the forest. I wonder if they didn’t spend all that money on gates could we have cheaper tip fees? Or would cheaper fees reduce the forest dumping?
Are tip fees driving illegal garbage dumping?
Captain Gravy on 07/10/2021 - 17:22
Comments
Heard of rates?
Rates can only go so far and that already includes household pick up of rubbish.
If councils were wiser with the funds from rates, and fines etc - it would go a whole lot further.
@pharkurnell: I am biased though have insight since I work in local gov. Yes, there is wastage and things can be done better and that's true of all workplaces. There a lot of services that are provided which is why people think they're not good value. But the huge thing for me is the cost of things because people are lazy and ignorant - eg doing burnouts in parks, littering, graffiti, dumping rubbish, vandalism, people/Councillors with silly requests.
@Caped Baldy: Agree. There are lots of arsehats out there.
Also councilors with their silly requests.. Shopping Sprees interstate 'with their family'…
or there was a famous one in this area long before I moved here (backin 90s), miracle the council agreed to tar and kerb one of the dirt roads in the shire..
Amazin that the tarred road ended at the councilors house. Nothing to see here.@pharkurnell: traditional that the retiring Major always had their street re surfaced just before they finished their "tours of duty"
Depends on the council. My rates give me unlimited use of the tip (for residential use)
@dizzle: $2,700 a year for rates I pay to Ipswich City Council, zero trips to the dump included for that ridiculous cost
Has to be up there with one of the worst overcharging under performing councils around
@billdsl: Me too mate. We've been paying for corrupt politicians. They've been sacked but the rates remain.
@locknuts: Yup, My experience with local councils, is there is a lot of corruption and waste in there. Some people working there are there to help and do good, but a lot are also there to just get rich of deals and help their friends / developers etc. My current local council got caught "donating" council funds to an overseas War army (magically the same army / country as the majority of the local council)….
Mismanagement of taxpayer rates is the bigger issue rather than a lack of available taxpayer money.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/logan-city-council-sa…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/30/forme…
https://www.ccc.qld.gov.au/corruption/outcome/allegations-co…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-24/ccc-gold-coast-city-c…
State gov has put $70 per tone cost on Trash it gets passed on people like you and I.
Of course it does.
On the other hand the more you charge the more you're likely to drive unwanted behavior.
The less you charge the more likely people are to throw something out rather than reuse. Another unwanted behaviour
I live in a rural/rural-residential municipality, the council charges a $90 "Waste Management Fee" on our rates and include a bunch of coupons to use the tip, 1 coupon for a ute load, 1 coupon for an old car tyre, and such… (I don't have a garbage collection service)
https://i.postimg.cc/ZKqrRtx4/DVC-Tip-fees.jpgIt's kinda a good system to help stop the illegal dumping but I'm at the boundary of the council and it generally works out cheaper to just go to one of the closer city council tips than drive out of my way to the free/coupon tip in my municipality…
In Bathurst we get coupons for 500kg of each type of waste. Plus the regular rate is cheap. Council owned and really well run. The tips in Sydney are almost triple the cost.
Wow, I'm rural and it's a little over $500 per half year, I asked if I could be exempt as I recycle most things and take regular trips to the tip for the free mulch and other free stuff, they said no.
lol thats probably the minimum charge
This. And not probably.
When I was cleaning out my parents house, Newcastle tip had a minimum fee, which you had to pay regardless of size. We'd load up the back of my Territory with crates full of junk, and empty them over the railing into the bins. It was quite cathartic. Only ever came under the limit once, and even then only by a smidge.
Half a tray load should mostly be going in the bin at home, or go out on hard rubbish day.
It's often the things they don't take that cause illegal dumping. We had a mattress that we needed to get rid of, but they won't take them. We took a knife to to it, and pulled it apart. Took a bit of work, but eventually it wasn't a mattress …
Bargain. It's a minimum $75 charge in Sydney, $420 per tonne for dry general waste. Even green waste that used to be free is charged now.
Our council takes it every 3 weeks and mulches it back at the depot.
@apsilon - It’s cheaper if you sort your rubbish e.g Kimbriki tip on northern beaches will take brick/stone/concrete for $28/tonne, steel/metal is free and Green waste is free for up to 300kg
If you don’t sort it is $388/tonne with minimum charge of $50
That is the sorted price, it goes up from there for unsorted. They won't take bricks/stone at all and if you have just garden organics it's $285 per tonne with the same minimum $75. It all gets a bit cheaper per tonne for large loads but it's only about a $20 difference. I think they still take cardboard/paper for free, batteries and oil, basically stuff they can easily sell. It's very rare I go. I used to go for large loads of garden waste when it was free but once they started charging it made more sense to pay for a second green bin at home as one visit basically covers the yearly bin cost..
Tip vouchers given annually with rates notice with local council, should be more common
Yep, Summerhills minimum charge is pretty steep. You can get 2 vouchers a year for free by applying for them.
But generally waste charges are mostly the government levy per tonne on the waste.
The worst is dumping greenwaste as they have no sorting costs and just mulch the stuff up anyway.
But as to your question, if you're the kind of person who will just dump stuff in the bush, you're unlikely to care if it's $10 or $100 to go to the dump.
I wonder if they didn’t spend all that money on gates could we have cheaper tip fees? Or would cheaper fees reduce the forest dumping?
People will always find a reason to illegally dump. It could even be to save $10 or petrol money.
It was $48 bucks. I thought to myself cheaper to dump in the forest
Why not just have it collected during council clean up? It'll free then (already paid for in your council rate).
full of cardboard, plastic tubs, a mat and some broken toys etc
This is just the kinda stuff people dispose during council clean up day…
Some councils won't accept certain types of waste, eg last time I went to the tip was with a load of melamine offcuts. Can't put them in the recycle bin, not supposed to put them in the general bin and council won't take them as part of a clean up collection.
Not supposed to, but just do it in small bits. its for garbage, not like you're dumping nuclear waste, and you're not doing it commercially…
I had enough to fill the bin 5 times over. Mixing it in with regular rubbish it would've taken months to dispose of. For one or two pieces now and then, yeah.
@apsilon: I know someone who disposed of a whole concrete driveway through the regular weekly bin over many months.
@Nugs: Being all steel as they were they'd be good for the recycle bin these days.
(A vc valiant is the first car I remember my dad having. I still remember the licence plate. He ended up rear ending a small Datto - a 1200 or 120Y or something - at about 30 or so km/h. The Valiant had some damage up front but the Datto was absoutely totalled. Solid deathtrap was the Valiant).
@afoveht: ours was reverse of that. I was stationary on wet road in our VE, old boy in a 1600 ploughed into me. bent bumper and boot (still open/close). we got paid $700 and kept driving until engine developed bottom end knock (long after reverse stopped working)
.@Nugs: IIRC I got paid out nearly $4k on some rear end damage to a Dodge Phoenix I owned at the time. Damage was limited to the towbar (never used it anyway, so just took it off) and bumper bar. I paid $120 for a bumper bar (which was in better condition than mine before the damage) and that was that.
This is the reason why we can't have nice things.
it's the 1% of drongos with this train of thought that go and actually do this that ruin it for everyone. Then will complain that they can't access their 4wd tracks…
Councils have vergeside collection/tip passes as part of your rates for this reason.On another note Australia's rubbish collection fees are fairly cheap, with many waste companies running next to zero margin (even making losses in some markets) to drive competitors out of business. This is the case in WA and the reason why many are going out of business
$48?? Bargain of the century….
Try Frankston recycling place.
SMALL UTILITY $97
LARGE UTILITY - 1 TONNE $149
Define "small utility"6X4 TRAILER HEAPED $136.00
MATTRESSES $28.50
obviously a very green area…..with the added benefit of plenty of fly tipping!
Yarra Ranges has even you beat. Heaped trailer is $170 out here. $35 a mattress etc. :( No surprise we get quite a bit of illegal dumping.
Yeah that's pretty cheap compared to some places.
You'll find asbestos is big $$$ to dispose of legally at the tip, which is why you often see old asbestos fencing / roofing dumped in bushland or simply on the side of the highway in suburbia.
Yeah, that can cost tens of thousands to clean up too.
Even wood chips gets dumped in parks and reserves…
Theres lots more reasons 4wd tracks get closed, down towards the bottom of list would be dumping rubbish.
You need to ask state governments why they charge high fees although they don't run or pay for the waste disposal.
In Queensland the state government charges Councils between $85 and $165 per tonne for waste disposal and Councils have to pass that on. Councils provide the land, all of the infrastructure and staffing.
Except councils also receive a rebate from the State Government to cover this cost for residential waste collections, so there's zero reason they should be passing it on to homeowners. The levy is designed to reduce industrial, commercial, & interstate waste disposal volumes.
My local council has started charging for dumping green waste. It's about $90 for a "waterline" stacked 6x4 box trailer.
Rang them to get a quote on disposing 6 motorcycle tyres, and they wanted $28+ per tyre. (Local tyre shop took them for $2.60 each)
Had to get rid of 50 old PC's from a local school into either e-waste or metal recycling and they wanted $15 per computer. (Local scrap dealer gave me $1 each for them)
A twin cab ute "waterline" load is double the cost of a completely floow to ceiling, front to back filled SUV/wagon.
There is always notices on their webpage and Fartbook about reporting illegal dumpers.I understand that they have to recoup money for disposal of these things, but not at a 3000%+ markup, but this markup is about 90% of the cause of all the illegal dumping in the area., as most of the illegal dumping happens within about a 2km radius of the local tip.
Using your example it just means people are lazy. If you think it is expensive to dispose it is just a ring around and people might take it. Even if it is literally for free.
How is it lazy? The “lazy” people do the clean up, pack the car, get to the tip, get told the extortionist tip fees, they then go out of their way to find a place where they can dump it and they go there an unload. Doesn’t sound like the actions of someone who is lazy, but more that of someone who wants to do the right thing and thinks “(fropanity) that price”.
If you think it is expensive to dispose it is just a ring around and people might take it
And yes, that was my point, that if it is expensive to dump at the local council tip, there are other places you can take a lot of your rubbish too who will take is either for a much smaller fee ($28 vs $2.60), for free, or will give you money for it (scrap metal merchants)
How is it lazy?
Too lazy to either google, ring around, see if people would take it for free on gumtree / FB.
Just creates more work for themselves having to go out middle of the night or middle of nowhere to dump it illegally.
@netjock: It could just be ignorance, people don’t know what they don’t know.
Not everyone is savvy and know of those options, and not everyone checks OzB forums :)
@SF3: People are savvy enough to say no to people dumping in their front yard middle of the night. Why would you think that dumping in the middle of no where would make the problem go away.
Basic manners are taught everywhere even in countries with no formal education.
@pharkurnell: Hours?
I wait in phones queues hands free while I am doing paid work.
I am surprised single track minded people can accumulate so much trash to throw out
NSW Govt charges a waste levy on everything going to landfill. It started small (originally it was to encourage recycling) but like every tax it just goes up and up. Currently the Metropolitan Levy is $147.10 per tonne and Regional Levy is $84.70 per tonne. That’s before the tip operator sees a single cent.
https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/waste/waste-levy…
So, in answer to your question, I’d say yes. When a 10 tonne load costs more than $1500, there’s a big temptation to do the wrong thing.
A friend of mine works at one of these facilities and I can tell you, they are making money hand over fist.
The waste levy per tonnage is self-maintained and declared, the Government does not have an office, or a seat at the weigh stations in these ASX company tips, so for every truck getting weighed and logged, 2-3 trucks can slip through, especially if those trucks contain recyclable materials that will be on-sold with little to no difference in the landfill area, as it is being recycled, not adding to landfill so it is difficult to prove that trucks are slipping through without paying the levy.
It's a very dodgy industry.
Bingo!
lol
or more accurately "bada bing bada boom" a la Tony Soprano
Our rates ($2.4k 🙄) include 5/6 tip passes a year but I just wait for verge collection.
I watched a program about this issue once and apparently a big part of the tip fee goes to state government EPA.
Depends on the item being dumped how much.
In the program they were driving trucks from Sydney to just over qld border to dump building waste. So it must be worth the trip in savings. I think they should make Asbestos dumping free to licensed removers. It’s so expensive to dump, but just gets bulldozered back into landfill. The expense of Asbestos dumping just creates idiots who dump it illegally and endanger everyone.Where I live (Redlands Council in QLD) we have no tip fees, but there is still illegal dumping.
It’s an illegal dumpers’ paradise out on the western fringe of Melb. Trailer loads of everything imaginable is dumped everywhere. The local tip is called the ‘Resource Recovery Centre’ - how nice and environmentally responsible that sounds. Pretty much everything is buried - out of sight, out of mind.
It’s $80 for a small trailer, $47 for a station wagon and $30 for a boot load, plus another $33 if you’ve got an old mattress to unload as well.
But the council is fairly quick in cleaning up any illegal dumping if reported. The problem is that a lot of the dumping is on VicRoads land adjacent to major arterial roads, and the council won’t touch it, and VicRoads can take 6-12 months to clean it up.Perhaps education on how to cheaply deal with some of this rubbish, there are sites and marketplaces on the web, some of it could be offered, even landfill can be useful to someone, collected a lot of sandy soils and stones offered in groups back in the early to mid 90's when building garden beds for sandstone area plants, recently stripped a queen size bed, used the soft coverings in an insulation project and the steel was free to dump at the local tip, have stored some bulk waste in boxes etc and placed some in the bin each week till gone, it's just a case of how to get people to see alternatives rather than the desire to have it gone Now, might not be possible for commercial waste, but would take some domestic waste out of illegal dumping.
In suburbia you get X amount of Council Cleanups per year, some have 12 a year and others have one a year where you can dispose of said rubbish minus a few exclusions such as tree stumps, tires, and some mattresses etc, but that is included in your rates.
There is certainly the fact that people feel entitled that they shouldn't have to pay to dispose of rubbish, and not everybody pays council rates, for example those living in Department of Housing Commission based accommodation, those from cultures where their home country doesn't have said fee, and is common practice to dump etc.
That being said, there is certainly money to be made from rubbish, cardboard, green waste, alloy, steel, raw minerals, etc but this is still weighed and is still apart of the total bill of disposal at a tip, mostly due to the time consumption of separating the general waste from recyclables unless it is a load of recyclables, and the risk to the public to allow them to sort through rubbish at the time of disposal.
There is local areas that have remote CCTV concrete blocks setup at the gates of known bush land that is a favorite amongst 4x4 and trail bike riders, and this has CCTV/Remote audio that people monitoring, activated by motion, can speak to you and let you know that they are calling "the police", but this is costly, and limited, and also easily vandalized.
The issue is getting worse, but I don't feel it's substantially worse than it was 10-15 years ago. It doesn't help that the quality of goods is getting worst, and can be cheaply replaced with another computer chair, or coffee table from Ikea for $49.
I think to get the illegal dumping under control there needs to be harsher penalties (it is more often than not cheaper to illegally dump asbestos, and pay the fine if caught, than to appropriately pay for disposal by professional means) as well as a "bounty" for those who dob others in, and also control quality of products. Fast fashion, Ikea based homeware stores allows for seasonal buying and this in-turn generates tonnes of waste that was never an issue before.
I remember the 'good old days' when going to your council tip was free! Yes it was paid for in the council rates.
Charging could be a way of councils getting under the government mandated ceilings of rate rises.
IE rates only rise within the limits, but previously included services are loaded up with fees.I remember that. Open air ground fill. All housing estates now.
I think that they were planned 'green spaces' parks etc. Win-Win!!
I remember that too, the smell, the seagulls.
The NSW Government charges a levy of $147.10 per tonne for all waste disposed of at any licensed landfill site. This is included in the tip fee. I don’t think it’s a cash grab by councils, they would have all the overheads.
Our local tips are still free (Far North Queensland) but our rates per year for curbside are over 1k, we can scavenge though, which is good as I'm always building something and there's heaps of good reusable stuff.
Yeah I never understood the no scavenge rule for most councils, maybe the scrap metal or whatever is somewhat profitable or something.
As to the original question I'd guess yes
I can understand it at tips, but I didn't think that there would be a no scavenge rule re curbside. During curbside collection period around my way there is a procession of cars etc with box trailers!
While curbside does have the no-scavange rule, I have little doubt that they encourage it in many areas. In Brisbane they schedule it twice a year I think, but they leave it out for several weeks past the "pickup" date to allow for people to reduce the piles. Then they have less to recover
we live in a time of 'I hurt myself so I'm suing you' - it's probably too legally dangerous to allow scavenging.
That is probably yet another fake news narrative. Most people can't be bothered taking anything to court even when they are clearly in the right. The council and govo also have unlimited time and resources for lawyers to defend against frivolous lawsuits. So it is likely shows like A Current Affair and The Project and other fake shows that perpetuate that myth.
@Charity: It's serious, I'm not suggesting scavenging is a huge sue-pocalypse but there are other cases of it happening and that's been enough to make legal and safety requirements change. Also if you don't specifically exclude certain things then your insurance goes up. I worked at a place that people used to use a as a short cut, the boss didn't mind because sometimes they would stop and buy things. He had to stop allowing it because it raised the cost of his insurance.
Not everyone is as fair minded and level headed as most of us.
You have to be smart about it. The amount of places around me that are vacant and being sold at the moment means there always a garbage pile I can add to, or start…
All can be solved if the federal government stop building those $10 billon dollar submarines and invest back in state and local governments
I bet the people that are doing the illegal dumping got paid to legally dump the rubbish in the first place. Win-win for them as they got paid and now they have saved their time as well. Criminals.
I found 4 bags of rubbish near the park not from my house. The rubbish had spilled out everywhere and amongst the rubbish was last years rego papers.
I posted it on the local Facebook page and the woman whose paperwork it was private messaged me saying she was going to sue me for slander and it wasn’t her.
I said well how did your rego papers get mixed up in the rubbish. She said someone stole the rubbish from her bin and she had no idea where it was.
I said ok, but I’m leaving the post up until the rubbish is removed. She said I told you I don’t know where it is as my bin contents were stolen.I told her you will have to ask the thief where they dumped it as the post stays up until the rubbish is removed.
It was gone by the morning. She messaged me the next day again saying she found where the thief dumped it.
I said Gee that’s amazing, next time don’t leave your personal details in rubbish you dump.Why would you want to educate them though?… We don't need 'smarter' illegal dumpers, we want them caught…
Just be lucky you can dump.
The tip at my LGA has been closed for the last week because of covid.
Only businesses can dump, not individuals.As someone who never uses the tip I'd be glad if tip fees weren't included in rates so that I don't have to subsidise people who use it.
Disclaimer: Not sure what portion of my rates to go anything like that.
Or would cheaper fees reduce the forest dumping?
To the scumbags who have a habbit of dumping shit on other peoples land it doesn’t matter. What would discourage illegal dumping is fast action towards issuing penalties.
You can recycle your plastic bags and other soft plastics through the REDcycle bins found at Coles and some Woolworths stores. (flexible or rigid) used for plumbing pipes, clear cordial and juice bottles, bubble wrap, cling wrap, children's toys and play mats, tablecloths, and vinyl flooring. recycling bin.
Can also recycle cardboard at your local bottle depot.
It can be $5 and these scumbags would still dump it, claiming it's cheaper to dump than pay like you've said.
If it was free, they'll say the station was too far away and the side of the street is just there.
Some people are selfish, entitled and lazy. Nothing will help stop that.
When living in North Queensland where tip fees are cheap or free, there certainly did seem to be less rubbish dumped illegally.
Townsville council were free for greenwaste or recyclables and less than $20 for a ute/trailer load of rubbish. Burdekin Council was free for all domestic waste (provided you had separately sorted waste, recycling and greenwaste apart from each other). I never heard of people getting rubbish dumped on their vacant land in new estates either.
Now back in NSW and the tip fees are just a joke here. Dumping onto vacant land is rife in my area to, you pretty much need to fence your block as soon as you settle on it.
Are tip fees driving illegal garbage dumping?
No, scumbags are.
Close thread.
Agree. Saw a load of couches and stuff dumped in the driveway of a community centre / church today.
I just can't… I struggle to imagine the type of person that does this. I wish I was Thanos. They don't deserve to exist in our community.
A Colorado tray half full of cardboard, plastic tubs, a mat and some broken toys etc.
Lots of recycling places will take cardboard for free because it has a value.
Come to Melbourne where it seems everyone illegally dumps, it's everywhere and looks terrible.
Back in Sydney the Ryde suez station hit me for nearby $400 when taking things there before moving, yes a mattress (listed at $78 now but I think it was higher at the time), $40 for a tyre, I think I had some motor oil (<10L) and the rest was a combination of regular waste and recyclable paper\cardboard I couldn't get rid of quickly enough.
That was everything I could fit in (and on, for the mattress) a 4x4. No trailer etc, hell of a shock and a very unexpected cost when leaving.I had a friend hire someone off gumtree to do waste collection and disposal for him, was like $250 for it all, turned up in a truck, did all the work, seemed legit. A week and a half later got a visit from the police who found stuff that identified him in the pile (mail or packages with name and address) who were wanting to charge him for the dumping, it was a struggle to prove it wasn't him and he hired someone (no invoice, phone number no longer worked etc). It was dumped within 20mins of his place.
In Melbourne I've tried to take a 4x6 trailer of green waste to a tip and was refused as I had no rates notice, I said no but it's from this address within this area (and could prove it) and I will pay the charge for it ($147?) they refused me completely. Had to try another area and a tip there who took it for around $105 or just over for green waste.
Frustrating as it was end of day and only had an hour or two left on the trailer hire, any longer (next day) and i'd have been up for another days cost for the trailer rental too.Its little surprise half of melbourne looks like a dump when its that expensive and difficult to do the right thing.
Yeah mostly because Suez tips off at Bingo so they need to transport it all to Eastern Creek.
- Tyres: dispose at any automotive shop, tyre centre for $2.50-$5 a tyre
- Oils: Most councils have a tip-off point for free, otherwise most major tips.
- Mattresses can usually be included in your council pick-up services free of charge.
A lot of Supercheap stores have waste oil bins out the front..
https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/services/in-store-services…They throw them in the general waste bins that go to landfill, a friend of mine dumpster dives regularly at Supercheap and gets all sorts of crazy stuff (mostly brand new) as long as they don't have the oil spills on them they're good.
Wow, this is a thing?
I live just outside Perth and the using the local council tip is generally free at point of use (obviously comes out of rates).
I'm shocked that some shires charge their own ratepayers to use their tip facilities.
had a quick skim through the responses; has anyone pointed out to OP he could have saved the money, fuel, time and post on OZB if he had just put it into his bins?
A Colorado tray half full of cardboard, plastic tubs, a mat and some broken toys etc.
Cardboard goes into your recycle bin
tubs, mat and broken toys could have been broken down/cut up and put into your household bin
Jesus, really?
The rubbish needs to get sorted and treated. That costs money.