Recycling Centre Balcatta

The most inefficient payment system to ever be implemented on planet earth. Be prepared for a lengthy wait to exit this place. If your time is valuable, then I suggest you avoid this place.

On a busy Sunday afternoon, I found all the staff very professional, accommodating and helpful. The facility is designed so you can get in and out fast.

This is the most stupidly designed system there could be. When emptying trailers of general rubbish it has to be emptied by hand piece by piece, carried 6 feet and thrown over a meter high fence, you then have to clean and sweep up anything you dropped in the 6 feet of no man's land.

The Mindarie system is far better - the rubbish can simply be pushed in bulk off the trailer onto the ground and you drive away. If I could give this -5 stars I would.

Today, at the Balcatta Recycling Centre, at 8:30am:

gate attendant: (a lady who was eating hot food while talking to me): "hi. what have you got?"

me: "good morning. 2 flat screen TVs."

gate attendant: "oh. not today. our E waste bin is full. you can't drop them here. Tamala Park might take them."

me: "why can't you just take them and put them in the empty bin when it arrives."

gate attendant: (while taking another mouthful of food) "no. we are not doing that. come back another time or go to Tamala Park."

me: "I have just driven here from Sorrento with no other reason for this trip. please take them."

gate attendant: "no."

me: "this is evidence of a growing pattern of poor service & incompetence that I feel plagues WA local government. your team must own the consequence of it not making an E waste bin available. can you please report my concern to your supervisor?"

gate attendant: "no. I am not doing that. do it yourself. go over there & tell someone what you think."

People of Perth are served worse by local government than any place I have lived in my 63 years. This includes several addresses in Victoria & one in USA for 4 years.

Our local governments have no clue how to recruit suitable team members: People that can listen, think & advocate to others in their team. Instead, they have team members that listen, don't think, & then rapidly become belligerent.

I've tried going to the recycling centre and you can't get into the recycling 'left lane' because of the massive queues for the landfill 'right lane'. I guess that's why everyone on my street just dumps on the verge and then "snap, send, solves" it. 🙄 Also, google says traffic is "less busy than usual" but that's because everyone is queuing on the street, so technically it's not busy. 😆