User pays pushes waste charges up

Fees and charges for waste disposal at the Redclyffe Transfer Station increased at the start of the month.

The biggest increases are for green waste ($6), which now costs the Napier City Council $84 per tonne to dispose of, and general refuse ($11), now costing $155 per tonne.

Council staff said the increases were required to cover costs under a user-pays system. While reselling scrap metal and recycling helped to recover some costs of the operation, a second weighbridge and new entrance were recently added.

"Every year we go through this business unit and we go through it line by line [to see] how we can save money," council environmental services engineer Ricki Freemantle said.

"This I do every year at least twice as a minimum requirement. What comes out of that is what the fees and charges need to be."

He said prices were determined according to a user-pays or full-cost recovery system.

"When fees and charges go up it is to recover the costs only.

"It is for the whole business to operate on a shoestring budget."

He also warned the charges would rise again at the start of next year because of new central government Emissions Trading Scheme regulations.

Costs at Omarunui Landfill would increase and impact on the fees at Redclyffe. "Next year, they are going to go up again and we can't do anything about it. It's central government. Some people seem to think that there is an approach by councils to make money from these business models, but it is the opposite. We're trying to save as much money as we can."