The City of Karratha has approved a significant shift in its approach to tackling litter and illegal dumping, moving away from fragmented geographic services towards a centralised, $2.9 million district-wide model.

At the June ordinary council meeting, councillors voted unanimously to invite tenders for a new five-year contract designed to provide greater consistency and oversight across all townsites.

Historically, the city’s litter and dumping services were managed under two separate geographic contracts — one covering Karratha and Dampier, and another covering Roebourne, Wickham and Point Samson.

As part of the decision-making process, the city conducted an assessment of bringing the service in-house but found it would not be viable.

The service requirements are too dispersed across multiple townsites and involve “fluctuating workloads that are not sufficient to justify the establishment of dedicated full-time positions”.

An in-house model would also have required the city to purchase and maintain specialised vehicles and equipment.

The new contract will cover town centres, road medians, drainage reserves, boat ramps, and known dumping hotspots with the current contacts due to expire on October 31.