Households across north-west Tasmania that repeatedly put the wrong items in their recycling or food and garden waste bins now face having their collection suspended under a four strikes policy.
Dulverton Waste Management chief executive Veronica Schilling said contamination in FOGO and recycling bins cost the region $700,000 in the financial year just ended.
Spread across the roughly 40,000 households using the service, it works out to around $17.50 per household.
“It basically wiped out the benefit we got from the waste levy money, but realistically we paid this out when we shouldn’t have had to,” Schilling told Pulse.
The policy was built into the regional waste contract agreed to by all seven north-west councils when it went to market in 2022.
It took effect when the contract began in mid-2024, with staff spending the past year working through logistics before fully rolling it out this month.
Schilling said 89% of households are already doing the right thing.
Most who reach a second strike never appear again as repeat offenders.
“It really is a hardcore sort of element that are either unable or unwilling and we’re trying to provide support to them if it’s an unable situation so they don’t get to this point,” she said.
The financial impact is significant because a single truckload holds around 350 bins worth of waste.
Once more than about 35 of those bins contain contamination, the entire load goes to landfill at $720 per truckload.
Items found in bins have included needles, batteries, garden tools and laptops.
Burnie Mayor Teeny Brumby said the four strike process is not a new policy created by any single council but part of the regional contract agreed to by all seven.
She said the aim is education first, not punishment.
“It’s not fair they are left subsidising the small percentage of households that repeatedly contaminate the service,” Brumby told Pulse.
Schilling said the policy is ultimately about reaching people who think the rules do not apply to them.
“If you don’t wanna follow the rules, that’s okay, but your actions have consequences for others and those consequences are being mitigated by the strike system,” she said.
