Brisbane's early pick-ups 'a load of rubbish' - Brisbane City Council says "NO" to any changes

Inner-city residents are complaining about early morning garbage collection.

BT

Inner-city residents have demanded a change in garbage pick-up times to allow them a more peaceful sleep.

Three petitions have been tabled in Brisbane City Council, with a total of 139 residents complaining about the early morning collection times.

Council policy states rubbish must be collected from CBD multi-unit dwellings between 3am and 7am.

The petitions urge for waste contractors to collect no earlier than 6am.

Central ward councillor David Hinchliffe said inner-city residents deserved some reward for going against the suburban sprawl.

"We have seen a reversal of urban sprawl in that sense as the [inner] city has grown from about 200 residents about 20 years ago to more than 12,000 today," he said.

"We need to respect their right to peaceful amenity even though they live in the CBD."

Cr Hinchliffe said collection should occur at the same time as it does in the suburbs.

"I agree that it does need to be outside of the peak traffic periods, the morning peak, the afternoon peak and at lunch time," he said.

Cr Hinchliffe suggested the morning collection window be between 5am and 7am

"Especially since the introduction of the Clem7 tunnel, we have seen some tailing off of the amount of traffic coming through the centre of the city," he said.

However, city business chairman David McLachlan, who oversees the city's garbage collection, said the issue had too many complicating factors.

Cr McLachlan gave an example of a truck "blocking traffic back to Cathedral Square" when it hurried to collect rubbish from inner-city apartments by 7am.

He said just six of the 86 trucks collecting garbage in the inner-city were run by Brisbane City Council.

"The vast majority of services that are provided for the collection of solid waste are provided by contractors who the council has no control over," Cr McLachlan said.

He said noise problems in the early morning in Brisbane's CBD were not provided by council contractors removing garbage.

"The issues relating to noise in the CBD, as far as that noise being contributed to by services provided by contractors is quite minimal," Cr McLachlan said.