Residents bag council waste plans
Matamata-Piako residents would like to bin council’s plan to remove rubbish bags from their annual rates bill.
As of July 2018, Matamata-Piako District Council will remove the cost of rubbish bags from rates, instead making it a user-pays system, in a bid to reduce waste going into landfill.
The Piako Post published an article on the proposed change on October 11, and a Neighbourly poll showed the community did not support the idea.
Over 79 per cent of those who took part in the poll wanted there to be no change, while 20.6 per cent supported the council’s bid to reduce waste going into landfill.
Noel Whiterod from Te Aroha said a change to user pays can lead to an increase in unscrupulous people dumping their rubbish in roadside ditches, vacant sections or even public parks as they don’t want to pay for the bags.
Paula Hey said her favourite solution was for council to supply rubbish wheelie bins, instead of messy windblown bags.
‘‘We are aiming to reduce the totally quantity of waste sent to landfill by our district by 13 per cent, from 404kg per person per annum, to 351kg per person per annum.’’
But the council’s communications manager Jenni Cochrane said the change would benefit the environment.
It also brings the district in line with neighbouring Thames-Coromandel and Hauraki district councils.
‘‘Most of the councils with user-pays bags shifted to them a long time ago.
‘‘We already know that the changes we made in recent years, shifting to the wheelie bins for recycling, have made a positive difference because our community has reduced the amount of waste going to landfill by 18 per cent in the past five years. ‘‘But we think we can do better. ‘‘We are aiming to reduce the totally quantity of waste sent to landfill by our district by 13 per cent, from 404kg per person per annum, to 351kg per person per annum, by 2022, and to reduce the kerbside household waste per person per annum by 5 per cent, from about 62kg to 59kg, by 2022.’’
The bags will be available at council offices across the district, as well as online at a cheaper rate of $2 per bag. This will reduce rates for waste collection from $153 to around $30. There will be no expiry date on the use of existing bags.