Three bins for every household

Every household in Auckland could have three bins - rubbish, recycling and compost - collected from the kerb under proposals to cut waste and save money in the Super City.

A new set of matching bins could be delivered to households from Franklin to Rodney and be collected and processed by a single operator, a confidential report released to the Herald under the Official Information Act shows.

One suggestion is that each household may get either two wheelie bins (rubbish and recycling) or three bins (rubbish, recycling and compost) under a standardised regional system.

And it is possible that landfill fees will rise to fund better kerbside collection and recycling.

The options are in a report by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers to the Auckland Transition Agency that is setting up the Super City.

The report recommends waste initially be handled by a business unit under the direct control of the Super City because a council-controlled organisation would be too unwieldly when the new council is starting out.

The report says waste services will need to be standardised throughout the region to give consistency and cost savings, and notes a one-off cost to provide new bins to each home.

A second, draft report by local government consultants Morrison Low - also released under the Official Information Act - said three-bin systems controlled by councils, such those in Christchurch and Timaru, were the best for cutting waste.

In the first hint of a major shake-up, the two reports agree that Auckland has no chance of meeting proposed national targets of cutting the waste taken to rubbish dumps by 20 per cent a person by 2015 without sweeping changes.

Auckland councils have a mish-mash of bag and bin systems - some user-pays and some rates-funded - which channel most waste into the hands of two private operators, Transpacific Industries and Envirowaste Services.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said those waste companies had an incentive to increase waste to landfill because they were paid by the tonne.

Both consultants recommend the Super City should take control of the city's landfills and/or transfer stations from Transpacific and Envirowaste so it can encourage people to cut waste.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers report says the council could buy or lease the infrastructure, obtain it by legislation, or negotiate partnerships with the waste companies.

Councils control as little as 10 per cent of the waste stream. The rest, including almost all commercial and construction waste, which makes up 86 per cent of waste sent to to landfills, is controlled by waste companies.

Transpacific and Envirowaste are believed to support having a single, Super City-controlled system because it could feed their facilities with agreed amounts of waste and deliver a guaranteed return on their investments.

PricewaterhouseCoopers suggested transition agency officials should prepare a draft waste plan, including whether it was feasible to raise landfill charges, for the Super City to consider next year.

ROOM TO IMPROVE

What the reports suggest:

* Super City must take control of waste from private companies.
* Single system for region could cut waste and save money.
* Three-bin system works well in Christchurch and Timaru.
* Better opportunity for collection of organic waste (which makes up 50 per cent of household waste and 20-30 per cent of waste to landfill).
* Present system encourages waste companies to dump more in landfills because they are paid by the tonne.

Sources: reports to the Auckland Transition Agency by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Morrison Low.