The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance revealed last night on Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive that $3,248,785 has been spent on advertising and promotion for Auckland Council’s $36 million Food Scrap Bin Programme.

Sam Warren, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, has slammed Council, saying:

“An extreme amount has been wasted on a poorly planned programme. Council seems desperate to make it work—and after all that money wasted, they say only a third of residents actually use the bins.”

“$1.4 million on paid media, $620,000 on an agency for concept and designs — and even $70,000 for ‘research’. Even after $194,000 on ‘community engagement programmes and training’ Aucklanders still aren’t interested.”

“The obscenely expensive programme has been exposed for its lack of full emissions auditing, and the more digging done, the worse it actually seems to get. It’s fast becoming nothing short of a scandal.”

“As it's been pointed out, the scheme doesn’t stack up from an both environment and an economic standpoint. Auckland Council seem to have acted desperately to make this work, and have spent more than $3 million of ratepayers’ money flogging a dead horse.”

“As pressure grows on Council for its virtue-signalling, we’ve called for the scrap bin programme to be scrapped—or at the very least, an opt-out option for those two thirds of Aucklanders not using the bins but are still forced to pay for them.”

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