Tauranga talked trash and said…

How much did residents already know about our waste problem?

Of the 8,112 residents who responded to this question, 59% indicated that they were unaware that Tauranga has one of the worst rates per capita in New Zealand for sending household rubbish to the landfill.

Of the 8,098 residents who responded to this question, 50% indicated that they were unaware that food scraps can take decades to decompose in a landfill due to the lack of oxygen.

Do the proposed services work for residents?

Recycling collection

Of the 8,116 residents who responded to this question, 88% said that a wheelie bin for general recycling, collected fortnightly would work for them.

Rubbish collection

Of the 8,101 residents who responded to this question, 82% said that a fortnightly rubbish collection would work for them.

Food scraps collection

Of the 8,107 residents who responded to this question, 68% said a kitchen caddy and 33L food scraps bin with a weekly collection would work for them.

Glass recycling collection

Of the 8,104 residents who responded to this question, 83% said that no change to the existing fortnightly glass collection would work for them.

Green waste collections

Of the 8,065 residents who responded to this question, 75% said that keeping the current privately-led green waste collection service would work for them.

What changes would make the proposed kerbside collections better?

Of the 7,997 residents who responded to this question, 79% indicated that having different bin sizes and costs would improve the proposed service and 40% indicated having an optional green waste service would improve the proposed services. Note: survey participants could select multiple responses.

Of the 7,467 residents who responded to this question, 68% indicated that the suggested collection frequencies would work for them and 22% indicated that an increase to the rubbish collection would improve the collection service.

Of the 7,020 residents who responded to this question, 74% indicated that the suggested collection frequencies would work for them and 15% indicated that having glass collected less often would improve the collection service.

Payment options

Of the 7,848 residents who responded to this question, 61% indicated that charging the costs to their property rates works best for them.

Private roads

Of the 700 residents who responded to this question who live on private roads, 62% indicated that they would be happy to sign a waiver to grant council access for collecting their bins outside their house. Note: the responses from private roads and private roads with limited access have been grouped together.

Of the 88 residents who answered this question who live on private roads with limited access, 72% indicated they prefer to pay the standard cost and take their bins to the nearest public road for collection.

Of the 26 residents who live on private roads with limited access who responded to this question, 77% indicated that they would be happy to allow access to their driveway for a smaller collection truck to turn around in.

Additional feedback

A total of 171 entries of additional feedback were received during the 3-week kerbside collection survey campaign. These entries were received directly to council via phone call, email, letter or in-person. The content of the feedback was coded into themes and then analysed. The emergent themes were primarily related to:

• Charges/cost concerns (65 mentions; 38%)
• Specific suggestions or feedback on the proposed approach (61 mentions; 36%)
• Residents who compost at home (52 mentions; 30%)
• Use of the transfer stations for recycling (40 mentions; 23%)
• Residents who don’t create a lot of waste and/or recycling (30 mentions; 18%)

What happens next?

Councillors will weigh up the proposals received from the waste providers alongside the survey responses and additional feedback received from the community to make the final decision on what kerbside services (if any) will be rolled out.

How you can have your say

You can still have your say on the proposed kerbside services at any time.

Retirement villages and apartment complexes

See how representatives of retirement villages and apartment complexes responded to the Talking Trash survey

See retirement village & apartment survey results