Council bags €500,000 in bins sell-off

A half a million Euro windfall was received by Galway City Council this week for the sale of its refuse service to a private operator.

Barna Recycling (formerly Barna Waste) has agreed to pay a total of €511,000 to ‘buy-out’ the Council’s refuse service for the provision of household waste in the city.

The company will take over the waste collection service from next Monday, November 25.

The City Council currently serves about 10,200 bin customers across Galway.

 The local authority will continue to manage existing customer accounts for the duration of a transition period from November 25 to December 31.

Barna Recycling will manage the accounts from January 1, 2014 onwards.

Customers will receive a final bill from the City Council in January, which will include any outstanding charges for 2013, including any arrears. The City Council, rather than Barna Recycling, will be responsible for pursuing customers for any unpaid arrears accumulated up to the end of 2013.

The €511,000 paid by the company to the Council is net of the cost of the continued use of a waiver to the end of December 2015. The money is to be paid in three tranches, and will be fully paid by January.

The waiver for the 2,400 elderly and disadvantaged customers of the Council was negotiated by following pressure from elected representatives. It will remain in place for two years.

There will be no change to the day or frequency of collections. Barna Recycling has pledged that customers will pay no more than €229 in 2014 for the standard three bins and customers pay less if they present less waste.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.