A tense standoff over rubbish and recycling collection north-west of Melbourne has ended after two councils agreed to fork out large sums of money to keep the services running.
Waste collector Wheelie Waste stopped picking up residential bins from 17 towns across Macedon Ranges Shire Council and Mount Alexander Shire Council on Wednesday morning.
Chris Philp, general manager of Wheelie Waste, amongst a day's worth of Kyneton's recycle rubbish.
Photo: Joe ArmaoThe councils take in towns including, Kyneton, Lancefield, Gisborne, Castlemaine and Maldon.
Wheelie Waste had demanded the councils pay about $110 per tonne of garbage for it to keep collecting rubbish and recycling, to cover its rising costs.
The councils refused to pay and on Wednesday evening issued an ultimatum ordering the contractor back to work.
But by Thursday morning, both councils had capitulated, agreeing to pay the extra costs, The Age understands.
Australia's recycling market has collapsed since China moved in January to ban imports of contaminated recycling.
This has resulted in surging costs for Australian waste collectors. Previously, they would earn about $50 a tonne from selling plastic, paper and glass to recycling companies like Visy, who would onsell it to China.
But now that China has closed its doors, Visy is charging collectors about $60 a tonne to accept that waste.
It means companies like Wheelie Waste are $110 out of pocket per tonne of rubbish - a cost they are now passing on to councils.
Eventually, ratepayers will bear the brunt of those additional fees, with rates expected to increase by up to 4.5 per cent this year on the back of the crisis.
Australia's recycling market has collapsed since China banned imports of contaminated recycling.
Photo: Darren PatemanMacedon Ranges Shire Council’s director of assets and operations, Dale Thornton, said residents’ bins would be picked up over the next week.
“Over the next few days we will work to ensure all missed bins will be picked up as soon as possible.
The government's failure to head off the crisis, despite being warned months ago, was a major failure, said Coalition Environment spokesman Nick Wakeling.
“It’s not as though this came as a bolt from the blue. The government has known about this issue for months. They closed their eyes and hoped the whole thing would go away.
"It's only going to get worse before it gets better.
“Residents are going to have bins overflowing in their own homes. they are going to have to put rubbish on their property – or dump it illegally."
The council and Wheelie Waste did not respond to questions about the commercial agreement they had reached. The state government has been contacted for comment.
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