A BETTER LAUNCESTON NOW

 CONTEXT NOTE: 

Against the background that the City of Launceston’s Waste Management Centre consigns something in the order of over 50% of the waste stream (AKA post consumer resource deposits) to LANDFILL and that currently it is already possible to divert 100% of a jurisdiction’s post consumer resources away from LANDFILL the city’s Waste Management Centre (WMC) is arguably no longer fit for purpose. SEE https://oncycling2025.blogspot.com/

Based on evidence gleaned from research the City of Launceston WMC sees:

1.  Something in the order of 10% of the resource handled by the WMC being post consumer textiles; and
2.  Something in the order of 10% of the resource handled by the WMC being post consumer treated wood product; and  that
3. Within the remaining post consumer resources  an unspecified portion of the post consumer resources goes to  composting; and that
4. Ultimately an unacceptably high percentage of the resource handled by the WMC goes to landfill; and therefore
5. The City of Launceston WMC that operates as a non income generating cost centre that requires the operation to be funded entirely by the city’s ratepayers and resident; and consequently  
6. The city’s ratepayers are burdened with a cost centre that need not be there and that is unsustainable; and given that
7. Currently WMC, in pursuit of sustainability in the context of the  CLIMATE  EMERGENCY the CoL declared in 2019;
8. The status quo is unsustainable, uneconomic, and furthermore is delinquent given the evidence that the WMC operation depends heavily on landfill.

It is very concerning to say the least that as Councillors as the directors of policy determination and strategic planning has allowed  the WMC  to reach this point of unsustainability in the clear light of day and in the light of incrementally mounting evidence that WMC need to be converted into Resource Recovery facilities.

This backgrounding raises serious questions about the viability, credibility and sustainability of the WMC as an operation operating as a Council Cost Centre. Given the extraordinary investment the city’s ratepayers, have made in then city’s WMC with diminishing sustainability, it bis well past the time to be proactive in this space. Indeed ratepayers and residents can no longer afford to see their representatives erring in their governance role.

 

This circumstance backgrounds the Councils need to explain to its constituency just what is the WMC’s financial status is and its viability​ as the 12025/26 financial year draws to a close in order to:

1. Put into effect the strategic changes that demand the attention of governance; and

2. Draw clear and distinct differences between governance and management.

 

MORAL RIGHTS STATEMENT: For the question I am submitting to Council here, I assert my moral rights as an author under Australian copyright law. Consequently, should Council decide to either edit, paraphrase, or otherwise alter my question it will cease to be my question and therefore it must not be attributed to me under any circumstance. Likewise, the question is directed to the city’s governance and not to the city’s management team given that they do not have the delegated authority to answer on Councillors’ behalf.

 

QUESTION:

Will the City of Launceston’s Councillors now be proactive in:

• The establishment of a standalone corporate entity tasked to recover the resources currently going ton landfill via the city’s WMC; and

• Ensure that the entity employs a professional Materials Engineer; and 

• Ideally ensure that then entity is a Community Social Enterprise; and
• Appoint a Commissioner tasked to Project Manage the implementation of this strategic determination; OR alternatively
• Outsource Recourse Recovery to a for profit corporate entity with the wherewithal to deliver ratepayers with savings and sustainable recourse recovery.
  
  

Ray Norman