MILDURA Rural City councillors were split on a vote on whether to grant $20,000 to Mildura Base Hospital to pay for a food dehydrator at their regular meeting for December on Thursday night, with Cr Glenn Milne saying the state government should pay.
The motion was passed 5-2 with councillors Milne and Greg Brown opposing.
Cr Troy Bailey was recused because of a general conflict and Cr Ian Arney was absent.
The dehydrator would enable the hospital to dry out food and put it to compost, instead of via green waste into landfill.
While supporting the use of a dehydrator, Cr Milne said he believed the directive to put the unit in came from the State Government, which essentially oversees the operation of hospitals, so the State Government should pay.
“My problem here is cost-shifting by the state government,” he said. “I understand hospital has to put this dehydration unit in place.”
Cr Milne said residents paid a waste levy to the State for landfill of $2 million a year and only received $1.2 million back.
“At some stage we’ve got to stand up and tell the Government they need to stop cost-shifting,” he said.
“$20,000, a community group could do with that.”.
Cr Jodi Ewings spoke in favour of the grant, saying reducing landfill waste was a “significant issue,” with green waste producing methane and other greenhouse gases, and the grant was a “good opportunity to divert waste away from that possibility.”
However, she agreed with Cr Milne on cost-shifting.
“Councillor Milne has a point regarding the cost-shifting and the fact that the Victorian Government is gouging, as far as I’m concerned, regarding the waste levy and we’re not getting anything out of that,” she said.
