This week's decision to start dumping tonnes of recyclable material into landfill is clear evidence it can't manage a rubbish collection and recycling service either.

The organisation often disparagingly referred to by many of its citizens as "the town council" is having a hard time coping with the basic "three Rs" of local government body; rates, roads and rubbish.

In the past 12 months property owners, particularly unit-dwellers, have suffered severe cases of sticker shock when they received their rates notices.

More recently the bush capital's car owners, a massive segment of the population, were told they ranked last when it comes to the Barr Government's transport priorities.

And now, after being told for decades of the need to separate waste into recyclables and rubbish, residents have learnt that their recent efforts have been a complete waste.

It's little wonder City Services Minister, Chris Steel, has been missing in action, leaving belated public statements on the issue to directorate spokespeople.

That said, and to be fair to Steel, many of the elements of the "perfect storm" that has made a mockery of the recently introduced 10 cent container deposit scheme we were told took so long to introduce because "we want to make sure we take our time to get it right", predate his appointment last August.

Both his predecessor, Meegan Fitzharris, and the Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, should at least step up to the plate and explain to Canberra how things went wrong so quick and what's being done to address it.

They could have taken the lead when this newspaper alerted readers to the growing stockpile of recycled material at the Hume Centre back in October last year.

As for the occupational health and safety breaches, such situations rarely arise overnight. They are generally the product of corporate culture and a lack of oversight by those responsible for holding the contracted service provider to account.

No government can use the subcontracting of a vital civic service to another party as an excuse to evade responsibility for the way it is delivered.

The Chinese plastics ban is old news and should have been factored into the way waste disposal is managed in the ACT long ago.

Recycling will only work if people have confidence in the system. The ABC's "War on Waste" program has shown if people truly believe their actions at the local level can help make a difference on a national or global level they will move heaven and earth to do their bit.

The trouble is that when that circle of trust is broken, and when people's efforts in sorting out their household rubbish or taking their bottles to a recycling centre are exposed as a wasted effort, they tend to think they've been conned.

People's memories of these events will last long after "normal" services resume at the clearly overstretched Hume centre.

Public trust, once lost, can be a very hard thing to win back. If this government is serious about maintaining people's confidence in its ability to manage even basic municipal services it needs to lift its game.