Auckland Council is running a pilot scheme to halve the number of collections in the suburbs of Panmure, Te Atatu and Clendon Park. File photo.
Photo: Supplied / Auckland Council
Moving from weekly to fortnightly rubbish collection is an idea that some Aucklanders want to see binned before it has even begun, while others believe it is a no brainer.
Submissions have opened on a proposal to halve the number of collections in the suburbs of Panmure, Te Atatu and Clendon Park, with the pilot scheme to be expanded should it prove successful. l
Aucklanders currently create enough rubbish to fill Eden Park every week.
The council hopes a six-month trial will encourage people to separate their waste properly and reduce what goes to landfill.
While some believe the trial will lead to roadside rubbish rage, others are already playing their part in cutting down on their waste.
For George Burrell, keeping his waste to a minimum was simple.
“In terms of separating out, it’s no big deal, the three bins are just sitting there in a line, at any one time you just take stuff out there and throw it in the right direction.”
Because of that, Burrell said he only generated two small paper bags of non-recyclable rubbish each week.
He scrapes his leftovers into the food scraps bin and drops his soft plastic waste off when he visits the supermarket.
“The red bin rarely goes out there in practice, I mean it only needs to go down there probably once every couple of months.”
Burrell said it was not hard at all.
But many residents in Panmure, one of the three proposed areas for the fortnightly rubbish collection trial, believed it was a terrible idea.
Panmure resident Taina Mafi did not think a reduced collection would work.
“Fortnightly, nah. I feel like we need weekly just because I have seen so much rubbish just laying around and the stray animals they also go through our rubbish so we gotta wait for the next day, so I think it’s best weekly.”
She said her bin was always full to the brim by the end of the week.
“I have four kids and four adults so it’s just busy consistently, and it’s gotten to the point where sometimes I share with my neighbours, just to make it a little bit easier for ourselves throughout the week.”
Nova Tuipulotu also found his bin was often overflowing by week’s end.
“Nah, definitely not in favour of that, it is convenient when the rubbish is able to be picked up every week because it compiles really quickly, the red rubbish bin it gets full in one week, really quickly. Two weeks you’re gonna have rubbish everywhere else, that just becomes a big mess.”
Tuipulotu, like many others in the area, has a large household and said the rubbish accumulated fast.
“There’s about two different families, yeah that’s why. Our household’s not that much compared to other households in this area, Panmure alone, you know Panmure’s a pretty big Pasifika community area, three different families, four different families in one house and that’s a nightmare for rubbish.”
Panmure resident Graeme Jackson has just welcomed a new baby, he said while they try diligently to separate all their rubbish, a fortnightly collection would not work for their growing family.
“We try and recycle as much as possible, and we try and put our food in the food waste bin as much as possible, we do composting we do all the stuff, but we definitely still need just our red bins. Now as a family of four even over the past three weeks we’ve realised how much we depend on that and really we kind of definitely need a weekly service.”
With a brand new baby, he said there were some forms of waste that could not be avoided.
“For us just now it’s nappies, literally nappies and any kind of food packaging as well which just can’t be recycled.”
Consultation on the proposed six-month trial has gone out to residents in Panmure, Te Atatu and Clendon Park.
Auckland Council general manager of waste solutions Justine Haves said much of what’s going in the rubbish bin can and should be recycled.
“Our research shows that around half of what’s currently in the average household rubbish bin could actually be recycled or reprocessed.”
If Aucklanders find themselves struggling during the trial, they can request an additional bin, or swap to a larger one.
“Most households in Auckland will cope by using their three bin services correctly, it’s a very small number of households that we understand may find that difficult.”
Close to 20 councils around New Zealand have fortnightly collections, including Christchurch, which has had them for more than 15 years.
Consultation on the proposal is open until 31 October.
If feedback on the proposal is positive, the trial will go ahead from February.
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