North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Inorganic rubbish kicked off the kerb
The days of Auckland’s streets looking like a scene out of Once Were Warriors are numbered.
Auckland Council is set to axe its controversial kerbside inorganic rubbish collections and offer a pre-arranged pickup service instead.
The pick-up service has been given the tick by the council’s budget Committee and is due to start in October.
It is already operating in parts of West Auckland.
The aim is to more effectively recycle the material that’s collected, as well as discouraging illegal dumping and the scenes of chaos Auckland residents have had to endure at inorganic collection time.
‘‘Currently inorganic materials collected are sent to landfill,’’ the council’s solid waste manager Ian Stupple says. ‘‘The new service will enable the recovery of more resources for reuse and recycling.’’
Auckland is one of the few councils in the country that has provided the kerbside service.
Under the new system residents will get flyers in their letterboxes telling them when the annual collection time is approaching.
They will then book in with the council to have inorganic rubbish collected from their property. The operation will be rates-funded.
Paul Evans is the chief executive of WasteMINZ, the largest representative body of the waste and resource recovery sector in New Zealand.
Bringing everyone under the same umbrella makes sense, he says.
‘‘One of the key things is [kerbside rubbish] creates quite a lot of public nuisance. People come along and dump rubbish illegally.
‘‘The other key driving factor is the aspiration for Auckland to be a zero-waste city.’’
New Windsor resident Duncan McKenzie welcomes the change after the mess made by people dumping their rubbish on his street.
‘‘It was awful,’’ he says. ‘‘I expected to see rats running around it.’’
The council received more than 13,000 complaints about illegal dumping in 2013/2014 and a further 12,800 so far this financial year. This includes the mess left by the inorganic services.
The annual spend on inorganic collections is about $7.2 million.
The new measures probably wouldn’t change people’s waste and recycling habits straight away but in time it will become the norm, Evans says.
‘‘It’s change and, as human beings, we don’t like change that much.
‘‘But I think in five years time it will be very positive.
‘‘Recycling was the same in the early 90s. People thought it was ridiculous having to sort through their rubbish,’’ he says.
Auckland councillors are due to give the green light to the new system as part of their deliberations on the city’s new Long Term Plan on June 25.