Hume residents will pay a separate waste charge from July.
During council’s last meeting for 2022, councillors voted to introduce the charge for the 2023-24 financial year.
Currently, waste charges are included as part of the general rates residents in the municipality pay. The decision to implement a waste charge will mean the cost of waste and recycling services will be separated from general rates.
Councillor Carly Moore said there were a number of factors contributing to the decision to separate the waste charge, including the state government’s rate cap which does not account for increasing waste fees.
“The cost of delivering councils waste services increased significantly… approximately 500 per cent over the last six years,” she said.
Cr Moore said the increasing waste charges can additionally be attributed to global changes in the recycling industry and the increased cost of processing recycling.
“The changes have created a shortfall between revenue and expenditure,” she said.
“I understand that this will have a big impact on rate payers [but] we want to live in a city that is clean and well presented and residents are becoming increasingly aware of the waste we generate.”
Cr Jim Overend said he didn’t know what the right answer was to the waste problem.
“I don’t believe this is the right time to do this… people are finding it very very hard to survive,” he said.
“It has a lot of concerns for me.”
A council spokesperson said the waste charge would bring council in line with more than 90 per cent of Victorian councils.
“Seventy-six of the 79 Victorian councils have a separate waste charge,” the spokesperson said.
The amount of the waste charge will be decided in the 2023-24 council budget.
