Moreton Bay Today - Alison Price, CEO of the Waste and Recycling Industry of Queensland

Bin night might seem routine, but soaring fuel prices are hitting Queensland's waste and recycling industry hard — and your rates could be next. Trav catches up with Alison Price, CEO of the Waste and Recycling Industry of Queensland, about what it means for households and workers.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

99 Cent Bridge. I found great rock variety on your Monday. You're on Morton Bay today with me, Trav. And for most people, putting the bins out each week is just part of the routine. No fuss, no surprises. But behind the scenes, there's a lot more going on to keep that simple service running. Right now, of course, rising global fuel prices tied to tensions in the Middle East are pushing up the cost of everything from running garbage trucks to processing waste. While collections across Southeast Queensland are still happening as normal, the reality is those extra costs are building, and sooner or later they could likely land on households and businesses. Alison Price is the CEO of the waste and recycling industry of Queensland or W R IQ and joins us now. Good morning, Alison.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Morning, Trav.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Alison, for everyday ratepayers, when do you think these rising fuel costs will start showing up in our bills and how big could that hit be?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

I think that councils and businesses experiencing the rising costs are all feeling that pain now. Obviously, rates are set in advance and council income is limited. So I'm really feeling for them as to how they navigate this challenge, as well as the businesses in our industry who are struggling to navigate this challenge as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah, we have the City of Morton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery on the show on a monthly basis. I am interested to ask him about this, whether council will be uh having a rate rise going forward or whether they'll look at cutting services uh in order to save costs in other areas. Now, you've got small operators losing up to $100,000 a month and bigger ones hundreds of thousands a week when it comes to waste collection and recycling. How long can the industry realistically absorb that before something has to give?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Uh Trav, I'm already seeing things starting to give in the industry from a financial perspective in particular. There's there's a lot of pressure on these businesses at the moment. They pride themselves on their ability to collect the bins, to collect the bins, make sure no bin gets left behind and juggle all of the logistics, whether it's a natural disaster that they're cleaning up after, or whether it's through a fuel crisis and shortages, that is our industry's focus, is that essential hygiene and sanitation for our communities. But yeah, those businesses are struggling. When you think about contracts at the moment, a lot of those contracts have maybe a 30-day notice period for a price rise that might be charged to fuel. Most of them, hopefully, have mechanisms around fuel because there's so much transport and logistics involved in our industry. Um, but they have to give 30 days notice for that price rise. And you've seen what prices have done in the last 30 days. If they gave notice 30 days ago, they probably haven't got enough of a price rise that they've included. And then their payment terms might be 30 days from the end of the month. So we're talking 60 days, two, two and a half months before these businesses will see extra money coming in, unless they manage to negotiate something else with their council clients, with their business clients. And all at the same time, in the background, they're then juggling the logistics of making sure they've got fuel when their fuel deliveries are short and all of the operational logistics involved in reorganizing runs if there's no fuel in a certain regional location where they might normally top up, at the same time as renegotiating contracts and making sure they've got the cash flow, because a lot of these bulk fuel suppliers are now insisting on upfront payment or seven-day payment terms instead of 21 or 30-day payment terms. So it's like a double crunch for our industry. Costs of fuel and all of the things associated with waste and recycling have increased really significantly since COVID, like by about 40%. Councils are all already struggling. If you add on the additional fuel costs that we're receiving, we're talking another price rise of 30 to 40 percent at a minimum at this stage. Because of the vast different distances that we cart material around Queensland, it costs a lot when the landfill or the recycling facility is further away from people's houses. So often as an as a community, we think, oh, we don't really want to live near a waste and recycling facility. But um there's a lot of advantages for councils that do have those waste and recycling facilities close because they will not be incurring as many extra costs in transporting the huge volumes of waste away from people's houses and businesses that we are creating.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

From a workers' point of view, Alison, drivers, depot crews, the people doing the job, are there risks this pressure could affect jobs, hours, or safety on the ground?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Definitely. We're seeing truck drivers, particularly doing regional runs, having some issues at times getting access to fuel over the last few weeks. Um, and that then means that they're often on the road longer searching for fuel and different options, which is causing more hours for them behind the wheel. Then we're seeing businesses who are struggling from a cash flow perspective to carry all these additional fuel costs. Um, some of my smaller businesses are talking about additional costs of $30,000 a week. Some of my larger businesses are talking about additional costs of up to $800,000 per month from fuel alone. So what we're the as they carry these extra costs, these businesses start looking around internally and going, what can we chop so that we can survive until two months' time when that extra money starts coming in the door? But when that extra money starts coming in the door at this stage, it's probably not going to be the right amount of extra money because it'll be the extra money for what they asked for at the start of March. And things are very different now at the start of April to what they were at the start of March. So these businesses, yeah, they're looking internally and they're chopping anything extra to try and manage costs to get themselves through from a cash flow perspective, which means all these workers, maybe they used to get paid extra to work on a Saturday and that was their fund money. That doesn't exist anymore. I I am very worried for our industry and for our economy. And I know everyone out there, from communities right through to businesses, they're all doing it really tough at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Alison Price, CEO of the Waste and Recycling Industry, Queensland. Thanks for joining us on Morton Bay today. Appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

No problems at all, Trev.