New food waste collection trial gets off the mark

A trial of Auckland Council's planned new organics collection service by North Shore households is off to a promising start.

Almost five tonnes of material has been taken to composting facilities instead of going to landfills, after participants separated their food scraps from their normal rubbish and put it out for the first kerbside collection last week.

Approximately half of the 2000 households in the trial put out their kerbside bins, coming close to the target of 60 per cent participation.

Solid Waste Manager Ian Stupple says: “Introducing a service for separate food waste is common overseas but new to Aucklanders, so this initial result of 50 per cent participation is very encouraging.

“We’ve also had fantastic feedback from households that feel good about using food waste as a resource, such as compost.

“North Shore households usually pay for rubbish disposal, so people are also seeing the potential to make savings on rubbish bag costs as well.
“We’re off to a great start and we look forward to discovering what works well, and where there may be room for improvement before taking the weekly collection to the region.”

Residents in pockets of Takapuna, Milford, Forrest Hill and Northcote largely representing Auckland’s demographics are in the three-month trial.

To take part, they are using two specially-provided bins – a small kitchen caddy with compostable liners for kitchen food scraps, and a larger bin for transferring the full liners into, for collection at the kerb.

The quality of material placed in the bins was high, which showed people understood what to put in. This included bones, shells and general food waste, along with organic matter such as paper towels, tea bags and indoor cut flowers.

The new rates-funded, urban organics collection service was one of a suite of projects promised in Auckland Council’s Waste Management and Minimisation Plan of 2012.
Participants are reminded to put out their bins by 7am on collection day.

Ends.

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