City Bin has become the latest waste company to increase its charges with customers set to face an annual increase of almost €24 from the beginning of next month.
“In the past year, we have experienced increases in our costs and unfortunately, some have increased again from the start of the year,” the company said to customers in an email sent on Wednesday evening.
“Global commodity prices and electricity cost increases mean the cost of sorting and recycling our green bin material has increased by two-thirds,” it continued. “The cost of black bin disposal has also increased by over 10 per cent since the end of 2021. While in the same period, our staff costs will have increased by more than inflation.”
It said it would be passing on “some of these increased costs” with the annual service charge set to climb by €23.80.
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It comes after Panda Waste introduced a new charge for removing compostable materials including certain food and garden waste on some of its customers.
The new charge of €3.80 per bin will be introduced on around 20 per cent of Panda’s 350,000 customers from May 8th and will impact households in different ways depending on how frequently so called brown bins are put out for collection.
It could add between €20 and €50 to household’s annual refuse costs.
“Approximately 20 per cent of our residential customer base will begin paying a lift charge for their brown bin in line with our other pricing plans, to encourage and ensure its correct use,” a Panda Waste spokeswoman told The Irish Times
She said that while the cost of providing services had climbed in recent months, the company had taken “every action to absorb these costs and minimise the impact on our customers. Before making any changes to our pricing plans, we examine all possibilities of absorbing additional cost internally, and only increase price as an absolute last resort.”
Addressing the new charges, Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) spokesman Conor Walsh pointed out that Ireland is “one of the few countries in the world where householders have the freedom to choose their waste collection service provider”.
“In every other country in Europe, where services are provided by the local authorities or private companies collecting on behalf of the local authorities, the householder does not have the ability to shop around if they are unhappy with the price or indeed the service provided by their waste collector,” Mr Walsh said.
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He pointed to a recent report prepared by the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) for Dublin City Council which found that householders in Dublin pay an average of €243 per annum for their waste collection service and to a separate report from researchers in Trinity College Dublin which found that the average charge for household waste collection in Ireland in 2005 was €375. “Waste collection is the only utility in Ireland where prices are lower now than 18 years ago, which demonstrates the healthy level of competition that exists in the market,” Mr Walsh said.
He added that waste collectors are “obliged to charge in a way that incentivises waste prevention and recycling, so recycling bins and brown bins must be cheaper than the general (residual) waste bins,” he said.
“This requirement is enforced by the Waste Enforcement Regional Local Authorities (WERLAs). They analyse the various charging systems and can take enforcement measures if they find noncompliance with the incentivised charging requirement.”
