Offaly householders hit by bin collection charge hike

A WASTE management company is increasing its charges for domestic customers by 5%.

A householder in Offaly received an email today from Oxigen telling them the quarterly charge will be increased from €90 to €94.50 from August 1.

The customer had been charged the €90 rate since June 2021 for a service which involved the emptying of a recycling bin, a general waste bin and a food recycling bin once a fortnight, up to specified weight limits.

The email said: “Firstly, as a loyal and valued Oxigen customer, we would like to extend our sincere thanks for your continued support and co-operation as we have navigated through a global pandemic. Oxigen aims to provide our customers with a quality service as we continue working towards keeping costs down for our customers while delivering excellent customer service.

“Over the past 18 months, like so many other businesses, we have faced challenging times and markets, as the waste industry has been affected by the current global climate, and operating costs continue to rise.

“Regrettably, an increase in charges is now unavoidable and starting August 1 , 2022, we must increase the price of our domestic service... This increase is a direct response to the increased cost of operating however we have endeavoured to keep it at a minimum.”

In February, Bord na Mona Recycling (formerly AES) increased its standard service charge by €2 per month per general waste bin.

It told customers: “As a business, we have incurred unprecedented costs increases over the past 12 months. These increases include a 30% increase in fuel costs along with similar energy cost increases to power and waste recovery operations.

“As is the case across many industries, the costs incurred for raw materials and spare parts deployed across our fleet and waste processing equipment have also increased significantly.

“We are continually working to advance our efficiencies in the extraction of all recycling and recovery potential from waste to offset these increases, unfortunately, it is not always possible.”