The decision from the Glen Innes Severn Council (GISC) to terminate a longstanding partnership with local disability employer Glen Industries to manage locals’ curbside recycling has left locals confused, upset and in need of transparency.
The arrangement, which began in 1992 and saw up to 1200T of recycling picked up and processed per year at the Glen Innes Community Recycling Centre on Rodgers Road, was terminated by GISC on December 6 with Glen Industries to cease operations by December 31. In the meantime, unprocessed recycling is piling up inside the Rodgers Road facility.
Locals have been left scratching their heads as to the “sustainability” behind Council’s decision to instead collect and ship the recycling over the Great Dividing Range to a facility in Chinderah, located in the Tweed. According to a media release from Council, General Manager Bernard Smith said “Council’s commitment to environmentally sustainable practices remains steadfast, [the] transition is in line with what is occurring across Australia where large cost-efficient facilities are used for the sorting of recyclables in order to optimise recycling outcomes and maximise resource recovery.”
General Manager of Glen Industries Kylie Hawkins has been incensed and frustrated by the “sudden” decision to terminate their 32 year partnership with Council.
“This closure impacts ten local jobs directly, of which two will continue with recycling and commercial pickups – picking up recyclable material from local businesses.”
“After painstaking exploration, of the remaining eight positions we’re ending up with two terminations and six redeployments into other parts of Glen Industries. Keeping these jobs local is important to us and working with the local community to keep them going is paramount.”
A lack of transparency around the tendering process and the costs associated with the new arrangement, coupled with a “baffling” absence of the process from multiple monthly Council meetings has left Hawkins convinced that “the General Manager had made up their mind about which way to move forward and was not interested in continuing our contract”.
Operational decisions, such as the decision to not renew a contract, are generally not decided by elected councillors, so it is not unexpected that it may not have appeared on the agenda of a council meeting.
Council reasons that the cost of maintaining the aging Rodgers Road waste facility, coupled with escalating operating expenses was becoming too great, and that a more viable solution is to have the uncompacted and unsorted recycling trucked four hours north west to be processed at a Re.Group facility in Chinderah, near Tweed Heads. Smith was quoted in an interview with Channel 7 New England News as saying “outsourcing will cost the same amount as upgrading the local facilities.”
In a release, Council argued “The utilising of technology such as optical sorting systems represents a significant improvement over manual labour, yielding superior recovery rates and waste diversion outcomes. This not only reduces costs associated with labour-intensive sorting but also minimises contamination, enhancing the overall quality of recyclables processed.”
Hawkins remains unconvinced.
“The inefficiency of this new arrangement is ridiculous.”
“Our rate to council for processing the town’s recycling is half of the going market rate, not to mention the grossly inflated costs for reinvigorating our existing waste management facility being in the order of 15-30 times higher than what industry experts have already quoted.”
The flood of community support for Glen Industries and its impacted staff has been “overwhelming” with Hawkins adding that “exciting opportunities have already arisen from individuals and businesses in the local community.”
One local resident of Glen Innes was quoted as saying “I feel for the people who have lost their jobs just before Christmas, that’s gotta be really tough. I get the impression that human impact probably didn’t factor into their decision very much.”
New England Times contacted Glen Innes Severn Council for comment and did not hear back by the time of publishing.
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