Tag Archives: GlenorchyCityCouncil

Plastics in the yellow bin. Any point?

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For many years my family has taken the use of our yellow bin seriously, giving careful consideration to deciding what can and can’t be placed in that bin. I have also wondered at times what happened to the contents of our yellow bin. For some reason, I’ve generally felt that most glass, aluminium cans, paper and cardboard, was probably recycled – without any real evidence of that. I’ve never had the same confidence that any of our plastic has in fact been put to any useful purpose.

To get a brief overview of Council’s kerbsite recycling operation, read this 2021 post in council’s own special website about its Waste Services. It says that “Council pays Veolia Environmental Services to empty our recycling bins and take the recyclables to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Derwent Park. Cleanaway Waste Management Ltd runs the MRF and is the contractor for all southern Councils.” Taswaste South, a Joint Authority established by the 12 Councils of Southern Tasmania, handles the contact with Cleanaway.

I started my search for information back in April 2024. To summarize what I’ve learnt so far:

  1. Council receives a report, originally written by Cleanaway and marked “Confidential”, containing some statistics.
  2. Council files those reports and appears to do nothing with them.
  3. It appears that Cleanaway decides what statistics it will provide and who will see them. Council has no say. It is not clear whether Taswaste South has any say.
  4. By the end of July, “Council had requested that volumes of recyclables received, and volumes of recyclables being recycled or reused be made available to the public and this has been agreed to be provided. The timeline for release has not been advised but we have been advised it will be soon.”

Latest question sent 19 December 2024. Waiting.

A brief history of Council and plastics

At the March 2019 Open Council meeting, Bob Pettit asked in public question time

“What is the position of Glenorchy City Council on the ban on petroleum based single use plastic products (which the City of Hobart recently moved to ban)?”

The question was taken on notice. Later in the same meeting, newly elected aldermen Bec Thomas and Peter Bull moved a motion without notice which after some discussion became

“That Council receives a report on the options for and impacts of reducing the use of single-use plastics in our community including a staged approach.”

Council finally received a report on “the potential options for regulating single-use plastics in Glenorchy City” at its November 2019 council meeting. The delay gives us some idea of council’s lack of interest. The report recommended that council “continue in accordance with our Waste Management Strategy including action to work with our business community to assist in the reduction, reuse, and recycling of waste.” It states “Officers do not recommend that Council moves to introduce any process or measures to reduce the use of single-use plastic in our municipality now.”

Ironically, it seems that Rosetta Primary School has done more than Council to reduce the use of plastics. They received a Glenorchy Community Award in 2022 in part because of their organization of Plastic Free Days in their school.

Public Question Time (April 2024)

At the April 2024 Open Council I asked in Public Question Time: “Can Council provide me with any evidence or statistics to reassure me that any of the plastic I put into my yellow bin is in fact being recycled or reused?”

In response, I was first given a brief synopsis of the recycling situation including Cleanaway and the Southern Tasmania Regional Waste Authority (STRWA). The second part of the response informed me that Council does indeed receive detailed statistics relating the amount of various types of material that are processed by Cleanaway. I was informed that the statistics were for “internal use”. When I asked if Council would publish those statistics, the answer was non-committal.

Not feeling particularly reassured, I followed up with some Questions on Notice so I could get answers in writing. In my experience Council has generally provided comprehensive answers to Questions on Notice (even if I wasn’t always happy with those answers).

Questions on Notice (May 2024)

Here is my first set of questions on notice with the answers as they appear in the May 2024 Open Council agenda.

Q1: What “internal use” are the statistics put to?

A1: They are provided to Councils for information on volumes of recyclables and comparisons across the various municipal areas.

Q2: Will council publish the most recent statistics and each new set of statistics as they are received by Council, and if not, why not?

A2: The reports include information on all of the Southern Councils, not just Glenorchy, as well as commercial information relating to the commodities and processors. The reports are received with a “confidential” marking. Council is happy to request if the reports, of a version of the reports, can be publicly released by the regional body each month.

I immediately sent back some clarification questions. They were included with the original questions and answers.

Q2a: I didn’t quite understand what Council actually did with the reports. Can you clarify that please?

A2a: They are simply provided as “for information” reports to Council. They provide GCC with information on volumes of recyclables and comparisons across the different Council areas.

Q2b: Is the confidentiality a provision of STRWA’s contract with Cleanaway? If not, who marks the reports as “confidential” – Cleanaway or STRWA or someone else?

A2b: Cleanaway.

Q2c: I would definitely like Council to follow up to find out if the entire reports (or portions) might be made publicly available. Can you make that followup happen?

A2c: Yes, these discussions have already been had with STRWA, and are currently underway between STRWA and Cleanaway.

Questions on Notice (July 2024)

In the absence of any further contact from Council on my questions, I sent another batch of questions on notice. They appear in the agenda of the July 2024 Open Council meeting. Here they are.

Most of the following questions relate to STRWA (now TasWaste South). That organization appears to be doing its best to be operationally invisible to the general public, dealing only with member councils. So, I ask these questions of my council.

Q1. What does Council know about the status of discussions between TasWaste South and Cleanaway regarding provision of statistics?

A1: The TasWaste South CEO has advised that a draft of the report for public viewing has been produced by Cleanaway and reviewed by the CEO, this is being progressed by Cleanaway for release in the near future (date unknown at this stage).

Q2. What has Council done to encourage or expedite those discussions?

A2: A publicly available report was requested by the previous Mayor when she was on the STRWA forum, and the Director of Infrastructure and Development has also requested its release.

Q3. Has Council received permission from either TasWaste South or Cleanaway to release any data? If so, which data and why haven’t we seen it?

A3: No

Q4. Has Council been informed by TasWaste South that public access to data is denied?

A4: The report in its current format includes commercially confidential information and Cleanaway’s intellectual property and cannot be released by any third party.

Q5. Will Council demand from TasWaste South details of any confidentiality provisions in their contract with Cleanaway? That should include provisions relating to publication of data for volumes of recyclables received, and volumes of recyclables being recycled or reused?

A5: Council has requested that volumes of recyclables received, and volumes of recyclables being recycled or reused be made available to the public and this has been agreed to be provided. The timeline for release has not been advised but we have been advised it will be soon.

Email to Taswaste South (30 August 2024)

I have now contacted Taswaste South using the “Contact” page in their website, saying this:

“My family and I are very interested in recycling in general, and in particular the recycling of whatever we place in our Glenorchy City Council recycling bin. Our specific interest at the moment is plastics. Earlier this year we asked our council if they had any statistics on how much of our plastics are in fact recycled or reused. We learnt that their data came from Cleanaway and they did not have the right to share the data. We then asked council to request through your organization some statistics. The last report from council (July 2024 open council agenda) said this:

“Council has requested that volumes of recyclables received, and volumes of recyclables being recycled or reused be made available to the public and this has been agreed to be provided. The timeline for release has not been advised but we have been advised it will be soon.”

What can you tell us about the “timeline for release” and when they may be provided?”

I followed up by sending the same text in an email directly to Taswaste South at their general address admin@taswastesouth.tas.gov.au on September 5.

Response by TasWaste South to September 5 email (21 October 2024)

After an apology for “the delay in responding”, the email went on to say

“I am pleased to let you know that we have published some data regarding the operation of the material recovery facility at Derwent Park that we have obtained from Cleanaway via the Rethink Waste website.  

https://rethinkwaste.com.au/cleanaway-derwent-park-material-recovery-facility-mrf/

This information is being made available to the public broadly to answer similar questions to the one that you’ve asked below.  We intend to keep this information update and hopefully we can include further information as it becomes available to demonstrate the positive impact from this facility.”

The information content appeared in the following image:

Source: https://rethinkwaste.com.au/cleanaway-derwent-park-material-recovery-facility-mrf/.
Downloaded 5 Jan 2025.

The alert reader will notice that the source was not the Cleanaway website. It was “Brought to you by Tasmania’s regional waste management groups in partnership with the Tasmanian Waste & Resource Recovery Board using the state waste levy.”

To be clear, the information relating to plastics can be summarized in a single sentence:

Cleanaway recovered during the 2024 financial year 1,208 tonnes of rigid plastics (HDPE, PET, PP).

I have since replied (19 December) to the email asking: What exactly does “recovered” mean in that context?

Traffic calming in Glenorchy … unlikely

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At about 11pm on 25 July 2023, a crash involving two cars and a telegraph pole took place in Marys Hope Road 25 metres from my home. Both cars were seriously damaged. The power pole was pulled out of the ground and left suspended in the air between the poles on either side. Police, ambulance, and a fire engine attended. Tasnetworks worked through the night to finally restore power by sunrise.

This crash reminded me of the many other occasions when we have heard or seen vehicles speeding up or down the road, and how every time it happened we wondered what could be done to stop it happening (or at least make it less frequent).

I’d noticed speed humps in Katoomba Crescent in Rosetta. Another flat top road hump in Nathan St, Berriedale. I’d noticed broader flat speed humps at Cornelian Bay near the waterfront.

Request to Council

So I emailed council asking that they consider modifying Marys Hope Road with some sort of traffic calming like speed humps (narrow or broad and flat) to make it very difficult or uncomfortable for drivers to speed.

The response very politely explained why that was never going to happen, primarily because Marys Hope Road is a collector road, and secondly because Council relies absolutely on external funding to construct traffic calming.

It also mentioned that Council was within the month going to put out proposals for speed limit reductions for public consultation – including one for Marys Hope Road. But its effect would be to reduce the speed limit and change some speed limit signs. No mention of road calming.

Which brings me to Council’s current Traffic Calming Devices policy. The emails from Council hadn’t mentioned this policy, and when I read it, I could see why.

The first version of this policy was adopted in 2016. We are now on version three. There was no public consultation for any version of this policy. According to the agenda item for its first review in 2019 the reason is that the “policy itself provides for a four-week period of community consultation wherever it is proposed to install traffic calming devices in a street.”

Yes – public consultation for a speed hump.

Council undertakes most roadworks with no public consultation. Council determines which locations it will propose for Black Spot grants. The public has no say. Council spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on a 300 metre footpath from the cycleway to the Granada opposite MONA (almost a thousand dollars per metre) without public consultation.

Why is traffic calming treated differently? So differently that the policy dictates that the decision to construct traffic calming must be decided by the councillors around the table (if it gets over all the other hurdles placed in its way by the policy). Yes, a proposal for a speed hump must come to an Open Council meeting.

Council makes difficult decisions, financial and otherwise. It can apparently disband an entire economic development team but cannot decide to build a speed hump without asking the public.

It is disappointing in this case to see Council apparently granting more importance to the occasional complaint from the public experiencing some minor inconvenience through being unable to travel at their desired speed – than to public safety.

In fact, the primary purpose of Council’s Traffic Calming Devices policy appears to be to make it more difficult to implement traffic calming. The policy in a section “Background” is completely negative about traffic calming. The entire document seems to obsess over “hooning”.

It claims to provide “a policy position and to develop a consistent and practical approach in the management of road humps and other traffic calming devices”. What it actually does is discourage residents from bothering Council with requests for traffic calming (and encourage them to take their hooning complaints elsewhere).

Council needs to decide whether the proposed changes to speed limits are simply to remove an anomaly on the speed limit map OR to actually reduce traffic speed and improve safety.

If council is serious about safety on the roads, it must scrap the current Traffic Calming policy and begin to produce a new policy that focuses on public safety and involves public consultation.

A policy that makes clear the actual likelihood of action.

A policy which does not give the reader false hope.

Sources

Version 3 of Council’s policy on “Traffic Calming Devices” (downloaded on 22/3/24 from https://www.gcc.tas.gov.au/traffic-calming-devices-policy-2021-final/ ).

Open council meeting agenda item for 2019 review of policy (downloaded on 22/3/24 from http://glenorchy.infocouncil.biz/Open/2019/04/OC_29042019_AGN.PDF – pages 49-50) and report for agenda item (downloaded on 22/3/24 from http://glenorchy.infocouncil.biz/Open/2019/04/OC_29042019_ATT.PDF – pages 69-72 )

Council’s historical collection starts to see daylight

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If you walk into the council chambers through the front door, you will see directly ahead two small display cabinets containing interesting historical artefacts from council’s historical collection. Those coming in the back door won’t see them.

Manual press ‘seal’ machine for the Glenorchy City Council (late 19th early 20th century). Council collection.

The collection has accumulated since the 1800s. Over the years, members of the public have asked questions about council’s historical collection but received little information – not the size of the collection, not a spreadsheet listing the contents, and certainly not photographs of the contents on a website.

A question asked of council last year revealed that an inventory does exist but that council was reluctant to publish because of fears that the heritage officer would be swamped by questions from the public.

Very few objects have been revealed to the public. Some are in poor condition or very fragile. The collection is currently stored in one location off-site with various bits and pieces scattered around council chambers.

Council has not been able to find a suitable space where the collection can be displayed ‒ safe, secure, climate-controlled, and easily accessible to the public – a museum.

But even if it found a location, the three-days-a-week heritage officer, the only council staff member with duties relating specifically to the collection, simply does not have the time to manage a museum (in addition to their statutory duties).

But even if they had the time, museum management requires a skill set quite different to that of a heritage officer.

But even if they had the skills, a museum would generate little income and simply be a financial overhead. Most of the public would see it as a drain on council funds.

Every now and then, council’s one and only heritage officer (part-time) will stock the cabinets with a new set of objects. That is probably the best display method we can hope for.

Council can do more. It should find a way to place the collection catalogue online, and attach photos of each item to the catalogue. They will not be swamped with requests for help or information. Even if they are, there may well be volunteers in the community who could assist in dealing with the requests (and possibly implementing the online catalog and gallery). Volunteers who could help with its design.

Next time you go to council, go in the front door and learn a little history.

NOTE: the image for this post shows the photo of a banner was created by artist Chantale Delrue for ‘The Gathering’ Centenary of Federation event, Launceston, Sunday 2 December 2001. Currently located in Council Chambers.