Planned kerbside recycling collection is scheduled to begin in Whanganui in 2023. Photo / Bevan Conley
More than half of the waste collected from Whanganui households is recyclable or reusable - and Whanganui sent 22,849 tonnes of it to landfills in the last year.
But now Whanganui District Council is proposing a plan that puts rates-funded kerbside collection of recycling and food waste back on the table.
The council's Waste Plan 2021 is the culmination of nine months of work by the council and the Whanganui Waste Advisory Group.
"The plan is aspirational and it is targeted to specific priorities," the council's waste adviser Stuart Hylton told the strategy and finance committee this week.
He said the plan was 90 per cent ready for consultation and some final discussions with Whanganui iwi were required.
The draft plan, which proposes two new rates-funded kerbside collection services for urban households, will be open for public consultation from August 23.
Hylton said the council wanted to get more involved in waste services so the community could minimise waste going to landfill, with a target of diverting 15,000 tonnes from landfills over six years.
It is proposed that a recycling collection service will begin in 2023 and food waste collection in 2024.
The rates increase – per household per year – would be about $70 for kerbside recycling and about $40 for kerbside food waste.
The draft Waste Plan focuses on services that will make the biggest impact.
Hylton said a kerbside recycling service could divert an extra 800 tonnes per year over and above what is currently recycled through the Resource Recovery Centre.
"The reality is a kerbside recycling collection would be more convenient for some households, particularly those who find it difficult to get in to the centre."
The proposed recycling service would take glass, paper, cardboard, cans and tins.
A household survey conducted by the council in 2018 received a 30 per cent response when it surveyed 17,500 urban Whanganui households.
Just under 44 per cent of respondents stated their preference for a rate-funded kerbside recycling and rubbish collection, while 40 per cent preferred the status quo of private rubbish collection and recycling drop-off at the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre.
Councillor Rob Vinsen, who chairs the council's Waste Minimisation Advisory Group, said the survey showed there was community interest in a kerbside recycling service and indicated a growing public awareness of environmental issues around waste.
He believes the support for such a service has grown in the last three years.
Vinsen said the proposed recycling service would be introduced in 2023 because it took that long to go through the long-term plan amendment process, put the services out for tender and build up infrastructure.
The Resource Recovery Centre would continue to operate for products that can't be collected from the kerbside and for rural households without kerbside recycling collection.
Hylton said food waste collection made up 8 per cent of landfill deposits in Whanganui and it was important to keep food waste out of landfills because it produced greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change.
"A kerbside food waste service could divert 1700 tonnes from landfill and make a real difference environmentally," he said.
"The great thing about a commercial food waste collection is it can take all kinds of food waste, even items like cooked food, dairy, meat and fish that can't go into home compost bins or worm farms."
Vinsen said the council was proposing that kerbside rubbish collection stays with the private sector.
"If a rates-funded kerbside rubbish collection was introduced it would be about $160 per household per year, and we think this is too costly," he said.
"We are aware of the benefits of private-sector rubbish collection services – they can offer households a range of options including 'pay as you throw' where you only pay for the amount you throw out.
"Pay as you throw services are a great help for householders wanting to reduce costs and it encourages people to send less to landfill, which is a win for the environment."
Waste services in the Whanganui district have been largely provided by private contractors since the late 1990s, which has saved council and ratepayers the cost of funding infrastructure for transfer stations and landfills.
However, under the Government's Waste Minimisation Act, territorial authorities are required to promote effective and efficient waste management and minimisation within their districts and the council has been reviewing its Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP).
Vinsen said while the timeline may seem extensive, it is only 14 months and setting up a new service was a substantial commitment.
He cited other districts where it had taken five years to establish kerbside services.
The draft plan also seeks to divert the estimated 25 per cent construction and demolition waste that is currently going to Whanganui landfills.
Councillor Alan Taylor said he commended Vinsen, Hylton and everyone who has worked on the plan.
"I see this as this council's first step in our need to address climate change," he said.
Deputy mayor Jenny Duncan said the community has called for a kerbside recycling service for some time and the draft also highlighted the need for education in reducing and reusing ahead of recycling.
"We're heading in the right direction," she said.
Councillor Josh Chandulal-Mackay described the draft plan as a good "interventionist" plan for waste minimisation and said it was good to see the 2018 survey referenced in the draft.
"I think there was confusion as to why we had the survey and didn't immediately enact a plan," he said.
"I see this as us responding to what has been a pretty consistent call for us to introduce kerbside recycling."
Chandulal-Mackay said it had been an important topic during the council's community pre-engagement for the Long Term Plan this year.
Community feedback on the draft Waste Plan 2021will take place from Monday, August 23 until Monday, September 27. There will then be an opportunity to give feedback on service details during the long-term plan amendment process in March 2022.
Kerbside rubbish collected in Whanganui is made up of:
• Rubbish 44%
• Plastics 4%
• Paper & Cardboard 14%
• Garden waste 13 %
• Food waste 8%
• Nappies & sanitary products 3%
• Glass 2%
• Textiles 1%
• Non-ferrous metal 1%
'We do our best but we are in extremely difficult times.'