Council is running out of time to find a compost processor before changes to waste collection begin.
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The widely-criticised food and garden organics (FOGO) service hit a hurdle in July after councillors rejected tenders and in September mayor Greg Conkey admitted the waste could go into landfill until a contractor was found.
Commercial operations director Caroline Angel said the scope of the FOGO tender had been revised, but not finalised.
“The tender(will) be advertised as soon as that process is complete,” Ms Angel said. “Council’s intention is for the successful FOGO processor to be operational by the start of the new service.”
Under the changes to waste collection, general waste will be collected fortnightly instead of weekly, while collection of green waste will be weekly. Existing general waste bins will be replaced with slightly larger ones and every home will get a “kitchen caddy” for food scraps.
Collection of FOGO was set to begin on April 2, 2018, but councillor and former mayor Kerry Pascoe didn’t think it would happen.
“There’s not a great deal of time to do it,” Cr Pascoe said. “There needs to be, in my view, more discussion about what we’re doing at the waste management centre. I want to see it done and done right, but I do have some concerns about it.”
Deputy mayor Dallas Tout was more optimistic, but said staff were working on alternatives if a contractor wasn’t found in time.
“We hope for the best and that we’ll get a good response, but if not there’ll be an alternative ready,” he said. “We can’t delay the scheme, we extended the old contracts and couldn’t extend them any more.”
Environmentalist Ros Prangnell said even if the FOGO waste went into landfill, it would only be temporary and worth it in the long run.
“It’s like the container deposit scheme, yes there are teething problems, but it’s worth doing,” Ms Prangnell said. “Organic waste processing is a long term think and we can’t back off on it, we need to think differently about waste.”