Taupō District Council seeking submissions on new rubbish bin system

Taupō's current waste system involves contractors manually lifting bin bags and crates into trucks.

Taupō residents are being invited to have their say on a new rubbish and recycling collection system that could see bags and bins replaced with multiple wheelie bins.

In a meeting last week, Taupō District Council confirmed the options it would present to residents for feedback as part of its Long-term Plan.

One option was simply to maintain the quo, whiere residents buy ‘pay as you throw’ stickers or pre-paid rubbish bags to put kerbside for collection, as well as rates-funded recycling crate collections for some types of plastics, metal, cardboard and paper.

Advantages of this system include lower demands on rates and more flexibility about the amount of waste households can throw away, but there are significant drawbacks.

Amongst these was that it was increasingly difficult to find contractors to provide waste collection for bin bags due to the higher level of injury risk for personnel compared to crews working with automatic wheelie bin lifting equipment, the council’s acting manager for general operations and delivery, Tony Hale said.

There was also an increasing incentive from central government for all councils to use the same methods.

“Many communities across New Zealand are now moving to a change in level of service, and for example, some of them are moving toward wheelie bins.

“Certainly, the Government has indicated that they want to move to a standardisation across New Zealand as well,” Hale said.

Councillor Anna Park said the existing bag system was a common source of concern among residents due to the potential for bags to become ripped open, or for recycling to blow out of crates.

“Most of the feedback I get from people who are interested in how clean our streets are is the flyaway rubbish on rubbish day.”

Councillor Yvonne Westerman echoed those concerns from personal experience.

“I was driving to work on Monday morning up Acacia Bay Rd, I counted 10 bags that people had put out overnight that were scattered across the road first thing Monday morning and it was just an absolute mess, so someone - either the house owner or the rubbish guys - someone was going to have to deal with that.”

The new bin suite would comprise four bins for waste, recycling, glass and food waste, similar to that already used in Hamilton.

The alternative to bin bags to be put forward is a rates-funded wheelie bin collection, which is also council’s preferred option.

This would see households in the district given a ‘suite’ comprising a rubbish bin, a large recycling bin, up to two glass crates and a food waste bin.

Homes would have weekly food waste collection, with rubbish and recycling to be collected fortnightly outside of summer, moving to weekly in the town’s busiest months.

Options would be explored around free assistance for residents who are medically unable to put their bins back by themselves.

One of the advantages of the new suite, was the ability to divert more waste from landfill, said Hale.

“Forty per cent of our current waste is going to landfill and this could be recycled at the kerbside.

“On average 27 per cent of bag contents are organics.”

Organics, or food waste, are currently sent to landfill, where conditions mean it cannot decompose.

A dedicated food waste bin would mean organic waste could be dealt with separately.

Kiwi homes throw away about 80,000 tonnes of food every year, from uneaten vegetables to peelings, bones and other kitchen scraps.

Current options being explored were sending it to Auckland to be used in biogas production, or to local worm farm MyNoke.

The new bin option was slated to cost $3 million upfront to purchase the full suite for all residents, which would be debt-funded.

There would be additional costs around educating residents on the bins’ correct use, and enforcement of a ‘three strikes’ system similar to those used by other councils to discourage the contamination of recycling bins with non-recyclable items.

Contamination of bins with items like dirty nappies has been an issue across other districts and can cause large amounts of waste that could be recycled to be sent to landfill, with some councils looking to implement fines for non-compliance.

The two options for bins in Taupō will go to public consultation for inclusion in the Long-term plan in June. If adopted, the council would aim to implement the new bin system in the 2025-2026 rates year.