COLLECTIONS

There’s no time to waste –
let’s make landfill our last choice!

Your kerbside collection service

The new service is now underway, and it alternates each week between rubbish week and recycling/glass week.

 

The food scraps bin will be collected every week. 

Meet the Bins

Para kai | Food scraps bin

Collected weekly 

Fruits and vegetables, bread, dairy and cooked food, meat and fish bones, coffee grounds, egg shells, pasta and rice.

Compostable packaging, plastic bags, cling film and liners, garden waste, vacuum cleaner dust, tea bags and liquids.

Para | Rubbish bin

Collected weekly 

Plastic graded 3, 4, 6, 7 or no graded number, wet wipes, nappies, sanitaries and incontinence products, bags, bin liners, cling film, glad wrap. Glass medicine and perfume bottles, light bulbs, drinking glasses, cookware and broken glass (wrap broken glass in paper). Clothing and shoes (worn out and unwearable), coffee cups/lids and teabags, cold ash, small lids (milk bottle and soft drinks), small animal waste, polystyrene, toys, tooth brushes and tooth paste tubes, vapeware and small stationery items.

There are some exceptions – our truck can’t collect: medical waste, hazardous material, hot ashes and liquids. 

Hangarua | Recycling bin

Collected fortnightly

Clean plastics 1, 2 & 5, paper and cardboard, tins and cans.

Plastic graded 3, 4, 6, 7 or no graded number, batteries, lids, drink cartons, coffee cups, spray cans, plastic bags, cling film, and soft plastics.

Karaehe | Glass bottles and jars

Collected fortnightly

Glass bottles and glass jars.

Tableware, broken glass, lids, mirror or window glass, light bulbs.

FAQS

1/3 of food produced globally is wasted – and a significant portion of that goes to landfill, and when food scraps break down in landfill they give off greenhouse gases like methane, which are harmful for the environment. The new food scraps service is designed to get food scraps out of landfill and collected to make compost – so goodness goes back into the soil, where it belongs.

No, but for a while you’ll still be able to drop off the rubbish in Council bags free of charge at Transfer Stations.

No. One week you will have your recycling bin (paper, cardboard, tins and hard plastic) and glass crate collected, and on the alternate week you will have your rubbish bin collected. The food scraps bin will be collected every week. 

Rubbish days are changing in a number of towns/areas. Check your Council website for details.

Home composting is great, and if you’re already doing this, we encourage you to keep doing it! The food scraps bin can still be used for things that don’t go in your compost bin (like meat scraps, bones, eggs shells, bread crusts etc) and for things that don’t compost well (like citrus, fruit stones, corn cobs etc).

The trucks collecting rubbish and recycling are dual purpose. One week they collect rubbish. They are cleaned out to collect recycling the following week. The truck that collects food scraps and glass has two separate compartments, so can collect both of these in the same truck. This reduces our carbon footprint and also the cost by re-purposing each truck.

 

Rubbish is taken to the landfill at Tirohia. Food scraps go to Tirohia Energy Park where they will be processed into compost. Glass and recycling will be processed at a nearby facility until the Tirohia Energy Park is upgraded to accept these materials in 2024.

 

The new collection service begins on 1 September – we need you to hang fire on using your new bins until then, because the existing trucks aren’t able to empty them. 

Want to know more?

Go to your Council website for more information 

on changes specific to your area 

(such as collection days, or Pay As You Throw retailers).