With Tauranga City Council’s new kerbside collection service starting this Thursday, households are encouraged to become familiar with what can and can’t go in the recycling, food scraps, glass and rubbish bins; and when the new services start for them.
To find out what week is rubbish collection week and what week is recycling collection week for your street, look on the side your bins and see what week you are - Week 1 or Week 2, then check out the collection calendar in the brochure that was delivered inside your food scraps bin (which is inside the rubbish wheelie bin). The collection day for your street and suburb remains the same as it always has been.
There’s a collection calendar tool on our website to make this easier and we’ve produced a short video about using your food scraps bin and tips for recycling better. If you’ve misplaced your hard copy collection calendar, you can download one from our website.
Council Sustainability and Waste Manager Sam Fellows hoped the new service would prompt people to think more about how to reduce their waste, and that recycling and using their food scraps bin would become “second nature” soon enough.
“The new kerbside collection is a more convenient and sustainable solution for our community and for our environment as a whole. If we all make small changes, together we can make a big difference to the amount of household waste sent to landfill.”
The new service includes a weekly food scraps collection, which aims to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfill when it could be composted. Currently, 33% of Tauranga’s household waste sent to landfill is food scraps.
“When food ends up in landfill, it rots without oxygen and releases methane, a gas that’s harmful to our environment and contributes to climate change. By using the food scraps bin for your leftover food, fruit and vegetables, meat, fish and bones, egg and seafood shells, we can reduce the amount of food we send to landfill and in turn reduce the cost to our environment,” says Mr Fellows.
“Using your new weekly food scraps bin and fortnightly recycling collection service will also free up space in your rubbish bin for the stuff that can’t be reused, recycled or composted.”
In addition to recycling paper, cardboard, tin, cans and plastics numbered 1 and 2, the new kerbside collection service means you can now recycle plastic bottles and containers numbered 5.
“We know some people have expressed concerns that the fortnightly rubbish collections may not be enough for their household, or the bin is too big for the amount of rubbish they generate.
“After the first year of the service, households can change the size of their rubbish and recycling bins – with smaller bins costing less than larger bins. Feedback from other councils is that it’s best to roll out the service with the standard size bins for the first year, before introducing the different bin size option and costs.
“The 140L rubbish bin fits the equivalent of two standard council rubbish bags, so once food scraps and recycling are separated, the fortnightly rubbish collection should be enough. But for those who constantly have too much rubbish, they can take generic 60L bags of rubbish to the transfer station for a fee of $3.50.”
Almost 70% of the household waste sent to landfill could be recycled or composted. The new rates-funded service aims to halve the amount of household waste Tauranga residents send to landfill by 2028.
Tauranga City Council’s new kerbside collection service starts from 1 July.
For more information go to www.tauranga.govt.nz/kerbsidecollections.
Kerbside collection tips
- Wash plastics and glass before putting them into bins
- Any small lids should go into the red bins
- Only food scrap bins go out weekly; rubbish and recycling is fortnightly
- To reduce odour consider freezing food scraps until collection day
- You can line your food scraps bin with newspaper or a paper bag to reduce odour and help keep it clean
- Plastic bottles and containers numbered 1,2 and 5 can be recycled
- Bins must face the road and be out by 7am on the day of collection
- We’ll be randomly checking bins to help you recycle better
- You don’t need to buy tags for Tauranga City Council’s collections
- No Council plastic bags will be collected from 1 July
Pictured: One of the new recycling trucks that will be on the streets from next month when Tauranga City Council's new kerbside collection service starts.