Changes to Penrith City Council’s waste collection services have sparked fiery debate in Sydney’s west, with plenty of public discontent surrounding the introduction of smaller residual waste bins, collected fortnightly rather than weekly. Images of dirty nappies and maggots have dominated the debate, which flared up last week despite the changes coming into place last August.

Penrith has moved from a two-bin model to a three-bin system with weekly organics collection (including food scraps) and fortnightly collection of residual waste and of traditional dry recyclables. The size of the red-lidded waste bin has been decreased from 240L to 120L.

Residents do have the option to pay an extra $50/year to have a larger residual bin, and families with children in nappies, or those with medical needs, can request a temporary weekly pickup – also at $50/year.

Last Thursday the Daily Telegraph published an article claiming Penrith residents were “furious”, with some “forced to store 14 days worth of dirty nappies,” and others finding their bins overflowing with maggots and concerned about the health implications.

There have been over 200 reader comments on the online article, few of which make for happy reading for council officials. “Shane of Penrith”, for example, commented that “I have a life. I am not going to waste my day washing bloody disposable nappies. Penrith, you will get my three bins filled with whatever rubbish I have and you can sort it out at the other end yourself”.

It is not the sort of reaction that suggests smooth adoption of the new system, although the council claims implementation has been “fairly successful” and 92% of households are using the standard three bin service.

A follow up story published by The Telegraph on Saturday claims “a dinner invitation from one of the 58,000 residents of the Penrith Council area will likely come with one condition. You will have to take a boot-full of the garbage created by the celebration home with you”.

The new collection system was introduced in a bid to increase the council’s landfill diversion, with the organics stream – including food scraps – to be processed at SITA’s Kemp’s Creek SAWT facility. SITA also has the collection contract.

Forced to defend the collection system in the face of the recent media frenzy, the council has issued a statement pointing out the new service “was developed in direct response to the State Government’s Waste Strategy 2007, which requires all local councils to increase the recycling of their waste to 66% by 2014”.

It explains residual waste costs around $160/tonne to be disposed in landfill, while clean organic waste will cost it only $90/tonne.

The council also points out, “it is important to note that if all residents filled a large red bin each fortnight, or opted for a weekly collection, we would not be able to meet the targets for waste reduction set for us by the State Government and would increase costs for residents due to more waste being disposed of at landfill”.

While the collection system adopted by Penrith might be considered best practice in industry circles, the media beat up and venomous responses from outraged residents will no doubt spark plenty of soul searching among waste educators and councilors considering similar programs in the future.

In December (well before the intense media coverage kicked off) the council agreed it would review the new system in February, with a spokesperson telling Inside Waste “council understands it needs to be fine tuned”.

A “special workshop” will be run next Monday night to look at community complaints and possible ways to improve the system.

Bin audits show that there is still plenty of work that needs to be done on the education front, with some 46% of organic waste still presenting in the red-lidded residual bins rather than the green bins. Contamination of the organics stream is also too high, running at 10-30% and preventing the council from achieving the “Grade A” compost it is aiming for.

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