People want to bin the bag
Hamilton could become a wheelybin city following overwhelming support to ditch rubbish bags.
Hamilton City Council recorded 2793 submissions on its proposed plan to change the way it collects rubbish from homes.
It will meet on Thursday and Friday to review the feedback. The city’s contract for rubbish collection ends in 2019.
The council has used its Fight the Landfill campaign to highlight how much rubbish Hamiltonians were sending to the landfill and how much could be recycled.
At the heart of the council’s proposal was a move to replace black rubbish bags with separate wheeled bins for rubbish and recycling, while using the existing recycling crates for glass only. A separate food waste collection, using a smaller bin is also proposed.
The council projected it would cost about $7.4m to buy new wheeled bins and despite the price tag, the idea has piqued interest.
Of the submissions, 2349 people wanted to change to wheeled bins and see more recycling options, while 419 people wanted to retain the status quo.
Seventy-six per cent also wanted a food waste service and 67 per cent wanted recycling collected fortnightly.
Hamilton’s current kerbside collection service consists of two black bags per week and a recycling crate for glass, aluminum, cans and plastics, with Preferred option:
15%: Retain current rubbish bag service, limited recycling.
84%: Change to wheeled bins, more recycling.
1%: Not answered. Frequency of recycling collection: 31%: Weekly. 67%: Fortnightly. 3%: Not answered. Howto handle glass: 64%: Separate crate for glass. 33%: Recycle the glass in recycling bin. 3%: Not answered. Howto handle foodwaste: 76%: A foodwaste service. 22%: No foodwaste service. 2%: Not answered. paper and card bundled separately.
Each household uses more than four million black rubbish bags and as a city, throws around 24,000 tonnes of rubbish into landfill every year.
People could only recycle two types of plastics but the proposed service would enable people to recycle more, including ice cream and yoghurt containers, as well as the once-rejected pizza box. Overall the city could double the amount it recycles.
Hamilton woman Lara Solomon is among many people discussing the changes online via Neighbourly.
‘‘At our current address I’d prefer to stick with bags as we have nowhere suitable to put wheelie bins, although we have used them in the past at other addresses,’’ she said.
Solomon lives in a stand-alone house on a shared driveway. She doesn’t like the idea of having bins sit out on the footpath if her family and neighbours are away.