Clarifying a few facts regarding our Mildura Landfill opening hours

Published on 17 January 2018

There has been quite a lot of public comment and misinformation this week in relation to trial opening hours at the Mildura Landfill, which we feel requires clarification.

The new hours currently being trialled at the Mildura Landfill, and resulting cost savings to ratepayers, is part of a broader push across all areas within Council to cut costs where ever possible. Every cost saving helps.

This is ultimately aimed at reducing upward pressure on rates and ensuring Council is operating as sustainably and efficiently as possible while providing essential services for the community.

In determining the trial Mildura Landfill hours, we examined two key trends:

• how the Mildura Landfill opening hours compared to other cities
• when most Mildura Landfill customers used the facility.

As you can see from the graph below, when compared to 12 other sites in Victoria, including large centres such as Bendigo and Shepparton, the Mildura Landfill operated longer hours than all but one facility – which is a privately-run landfill that takes 10 times more waste than Mildura receives.

In short, we believed we were over-servicing our landfill compared to other areas.

By trialling a reduction in our hours, we are bringing our landfill more closely into line with other facilities across Victoria, and still operating longer than many other facilities, including Shepparton.

In deciding on when the landfill would open and close during the trial period, we examined a full year of usage by day and by hour in a bid to ensure the new hours suited as many residents as possible.

As you can see from the graph below, this revealed that during the hours impacted by our trial – opening an hour later each day and closing 45 minutes earlier each week day – there were a very small number of customers that used the landfill, further evidence it was being over-serviced.

Just three per cent of people used the landfill between 7am and 8am, and six per cent in the last 45 minutes of the day.

There has also been comment in the media this week directly linking the trial hours to short periods where people are required to line-up to enter the weighbridge. This is incorrect.

There have always been brief periods, particularly during school holidays and the summer months – which we’re currently in the midst of - where there may be line-ups at the Mildura Landfill. Our data shows that these incidents normally happen between 10am and 3pm, which is outside the hours impacted by our trial.

There was an exception in the lead-up to Christmas this year, caused by the unusual combination of a major storm event and resulting fallen/damaged trees and the busy school holiday period. This is evidenced by the fact that 12,400 people used the landfill in December, well above the 8000 average for the month, and the highest number of users in one month in well over a decade.

We will continue to monitor the impacts of the trial hours during both the busiest months of the year, which we’re currently experiencing, and the quieter months before examining all feedback and making a recommendation to Council later this year. 

Mandy Whelan

General Manager Development