Rubbish trucks in 149 incidents
Almost 150 cars, letterboxes and fences have been damaged by Auckland rubbish collection trucks in the past 18 months.
The Herald can reveal 149 incidents were recorded from January last year to June this year during Auckland Council’s rubbish and recycling kerbside collection service.
Auckland’s waste management operation was the largest residential collection in the Southern Hemisphere with every road in the city serviced. Each day 300 bins are emptied per minute.
Throughout the central, south and north collection areas there were 99 car-related incidents and 50 “other incidents” which included damage to letterboxes and fences.
In the central area, 48 car incidents and 16 other incidents were recorded.
In the south there were 30 car and 25 others, meanwhile, in the north, there were 21 car and nine others.
Those recorded resulted in proven claims of damage throughout the 18-month period and included accidents caused by members of the public as well as by rubbish truck drivers.
Auckland Council’s general manager of Waste Solutions, Parul Sood, said the number of collisions was small compared to the number of bins collected.
“Auckland Council’s service collects approximately 165,000 bins every day — that’s around 19,000 bins an hour, or 300 bins each minute.
“In relation to the scale of the service, these incidents happen very infrequently — this works out to be approximately one incident for every 600,000 bins collected,” he said.
“We take every incident seriously and we work closely with our contractors to . . . minimise the chance of damages taking place.”