The Dominion Post report:
Kapiti residents will have to pay for their rubbish to be collected privately as the council dumps its kerbside trash collection.
Rubbish bags are no longer being sold by Kapiti Coast District Council as it prepares for the private switchover.
The number of rubbish bags sold is expected to drop from 308,000 in the past year to 130,000 this year, which means the service would no longer be financially viable as the sale of bags covers collection costs.
That’s a massive drop in one year. Rubbish collection is probably one of the services most ratepayers expect councils to provide out of their rates.
The decline in council rubbish bag sales was believed to be due to competition from private contractors. Council rubbish bags cost about $18 for 5, compared with private operators charging $11 for 5.
You really have wonder how inefficient and poorly managed the council’s rubbish service was if they had to charge $7 extra per pack of bags than their private competition to keep it viable. It’s almost as if they wanted for it to fail and flog it off.
The council’s infrastructure group manager, Sean Mallon, said continuing the collection of council bags till October 1 gave people with stocks plenty of time to use them.
All this only 3 months after the Kapiti Coast District Council took delivery of the Southern Hemisphere’s only lithium-ion phosphate powered rubbish truck costing $200,000.
I wonder if ratepayers will get their money’s worth out of the new truck before rubbish collection is privitised after October 1?
Council climate change and energy senior adviser Jake Roos said the truck was replacing another at the end of its usable life.
The council had looked at various options – including second-hand trucks – but the electric option was a great buy, he said.
“If one has a quarter of the operating costs as the other, it’s a pretty easy decision to make.”
It beggars belief that a council would invest in something so significant in May/June, only to then priviatise the service it was bought to provide a few months later in the name of cost saving.
Who knows, maybe there’s a secret plan to have it lead all future Christmas parades in Kapiti.
WCC Watch 