Hard Waste

Bring back a hard waste service for all residents and do it properly

The plan in brief:

  • Restored hard waste collection

  • Ongoing service available to all residents

  • Appointment-based collection at a time that suits the household

  • Best-practice resource recovery, diverting material from landfill

  • Insource collection to Council-owned entities rather than a limited contractor market

Residents are tired of junk such as broken appliances piling up under their house and seeing illegal rubbish dumping around Clarence. We used to have a kerbside hard waste collection. Council stopped it in 2023. The voucher trial that followed did not fix the problem. It is time to restore a service that works for Clarence households.

The old private-contractor collection model became unsafe and unsightly. Streets filled with piles for days. Contractors lost interest. Costs blew out and about 95 per cent of what was picked up went straight to landfill. In April 2024 I moved a motion investigating alternative models to restore a hard waste service. That work showed the old model is no longer viable.

The voucher scheme that replaced it was unfair, bureaucratic and costly. One voucher per household, sent to landlords not renters. You had to find the council letter, enter a unique ID, download a QR code, then drive the load to Mornington Park, present it at the weighbridge on the way in and again on the way out. If you did not have a vehicle, the voucher wasn’t much help. The trial ended on 30 June. Residents are again on their own.

There is a better way sitting in our own backyard.

Clarence is the largest council owner of Southern Waste Solutions. SWS already runs the Copping landfill and the Lutana waste transfer station. In July Lutana obtained an EPA Level 2 licence. That transforms it from a waste transfer station into a resource recovery hub approved to accept up to 90,000 tonnes a year. The licence allows active on-site sorting and processing of materials including metals, timber, mattresses and hard plastics. More material recovered. Less going to landfill. The site is built for volume. It already handles municipal and commercial loads from across southern Tasmania. It is the right kind of facility to process collections from a booked hard waste service.

Through my role on Council, I chair the Copping Refuse Disposal Site Joint Authority. Eight years in this rapidly changing sector have given me the knowledge and practical insight to get a service back on the street. I look forward to working with like-minded councillors in the next term. Together we will put a clear proposal for SWS to design, deliver and operate an appointment-based hard waste pickup for all Clarence residents.

The model already works elsewhere. Mainland councils like Greater Geelong let households book hard waste collections. You choose a week, put the items out the Sunday before, and they are collected during that week. No month-long street piles. No “hope you have a trailer” voucher. Clarence can use the same idea: book online or by phone, 1–2 pickups per year, items out only when a truck is coming, then take the load to a licensed facility that can actually sort it.

I am standing for Mayor and Councillor because local government should deliver the basics. Hard waste collection is a basic service that was highly valued by most households.

Clarence can stop the dumping, cut the red tape, and recover more of what we throw away. The capability is already there.