GAWLER residents, at long last, will soon be able to have hard rubbish collected from their homes under a new scheme that will commence next month.
At a meeting last Tuesday night, Gawler Council agreed to allocate up to $120,000 towards rolling out a new Hard Waste Service across the township, which will be in effect from November onwards.
The funding for the initiative, carried out in partnership with Willaston company Eco Waste Solutions and the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority (NAWMA), was delivered from surplus revenue generated by council’s 2017/18 Kerbside Waste Management Service.
The introduction of the whole-town service comes after the council carried out a trial run last year, whereby up to 460 Gawler pensioner concession card holders could apply to have hard waste collected from their homes.
Only 154 people utilised the trial, which council deemed to be “a success” due to the positive feedback it and NAWMA received in response to the initiative.
Councillor Ian Tooley said it was great that all Gawler residents would now get access to a hard waste collection service.
“A lot of people weren’t happy when (the trial) was limited to just a few people, and I’ve fought hard for this to be expanded to the wider community,” he said.
“It’s an issue that comes up quite regularly, and the fact we’re now implementing this service is in response to that community interest, and that community need.
“It’s not a large amount of money, and as we can see it’s capped and will likely come in under budget because it may not be fully subscribed to, and if that’s the case then that’s a good thing.
“But we will be providing a service to people in need; I think the most vulnerable are those people who don’t have trailers, and don’t have perhaps the finances or the mobility (to do it themselves).
“So, I would hope that we promote this so those people realise there’s a service here that we can provide to help them.”
The new service is also hoped to curb illegal dumping around Gawler, at places such as Gawler Community House or the Salvos, by giving residents easy means in which to dispose of their hard waste.
The Community House in November last year reported the problem had become so bad it was considering installing CCTV in order to deter people from leaving their waste on its doorstep.
Cr Cody Davies hoped there would be less of that behaviour in the future under the new scheme.
“Providing a proper means to do that, I think, will make it easier on people, and we’ll have a lot less people sneaking around and waiting until they can dump it somewhere else,” he said.
“It’s a good idea and I’m glad we’re doing it.”
The Hard Waste Service will be limited to one collection/drop-off per residential property.
For more information, contact Gawler Council on 8522 9211 or visit gawler.sa.gov.au
