Newspapers and rubbish

Last Monday night, I attended a meeting of the Environmental and Planning Well-Being Committee. Among the items debated was editorial amendments to Council bylaws. In 2004, Council undertook an extensive review of the bylaws and after many meetings, briefings and much debate, the current bylaws were eventually passed.

Now, as happens once in a while, some typographical errors were found. Things like references to the wrong clause are easily missed when people are focusing on the substance. When this happens, minor changes to correct errors are dealt with by bringing the matter forward at a publicly notified meeting.

So, in 2004, the Nuisance Bylaw was passed, but through an error the wording relating to rubbish collection was entered as:

Refuse or recycling shall be placed at the kerbside in residential areas for collection no later than 7.30am on the collection day.Incorrectly recorded wording.

Now, the problem with this is two-fold. The statement, "for collection no later than 7.30am" could be misinterpreted as meaning that collection would take place no later than 7.30am. The ambiguous wording also meant residents could be justified in arguing that putting rubbish out on the street on a Tuesday was legitimate if their collection day was a Monday, after all, it would be going out prior to 7.30am the following Monday! The council-provided rubbish bags have clearer wording, stating that bags must be put out prior to 7.30am on collection day.

On Monday night, this wording was clarified to bring it into line with the decision that was made in 2004. The wording now reads:

Refuse or recycling shall be placed at the kerbside in residential areas only on collection day and no later than 7.30am.Nuisance Bylaw

At the meeting, I raised the issue of people putting their rubbish bags and bins out the night before and the inconvenience of having to get out on cold winter mornings before 7.30am. It was pointed out to me that this had always been council policy and after I looked into this further, I accept that argument. After going through my notes, I also agree that the minor change to the wording does accurately reflect the decision made in 2004. What intrigues me, however, is that the newspaper reporter had the same documentation I had, attended the same meeting, heard the questions and answers, yet chose to report this as a "new" bylaw. In fact, nothing has changed except for a minor editorial amendment in the legal document that was enacted in 2004.

The city council is NOT putting rubbish bag Police on the streets. It is NOT doing anything that is any different to what it has been doing for years in terms of when bags and bins are put out. 7.30am is the time when the first collection trucks hit the streets to start their rounds. If you live in a street that has its bags collected around 7.30am, you will need to get your rubbish bags out before 7.30am, but for the streets that are serviced later on the day all you have to do is get your bag out that day before the trucks arrive.

The bylaw was not put into place to annoy people. Quite the opposite - council has had so many complaints about split bags and refuse strewn about streets after dogs, cats, and hoons have had their fun with them that we had to look at how to mitigate this. People also often considered it was council's job to clean up after the contents of bags got scattered around and, in most cases, the workers on the trucks do exactly that. And council picks up the tab. The only income council gets to offset these costs is from our rates. I don't know what you think about this, but I sure don't want to see my rates increasing even more due to some folks lack of care over their rubbish bags. The bylaw gives powers to council to take action against repeat offenders. This is not done lightly and officers work with people to resolve issues rather than just slapping an infringement notice on anyone. This is how it has been for years - all the amendments to the wording do is clarify the intent of the bylaw.

As always, I am interested in your comments on this.

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