The Dunedin City Council’s new kerbside collection service, starting July 1, will introduce three new bins — a 140-litre green-lidded food and garden waste bin, a 140-litre red-lidded bin, to replace black rubbish bags, and a 6-litre counter-top kitchen bin.
The 140-litre green bin can be swapped out with a smaller 23-litre green bin for houses and units with little or no garden.
Yellow-lidded recycling bins and blue crates for glass will stay the same.
So far, 12 of 28 container-loads of unassembled bins have been delivered to Dunedin and the council expects a total of 181,050 bins to hit the streets once full service is under way.
Infrastructure services committee chairman Cr Jim O’Malley said the new kerbside collection services had been three years in the making and was a "major step" for the city’s waste management.
"We’re going to be the most advanced system in the country at the moment, and this will take us really into the place I think people in Dunedin want to be where we can be proud of the quality."
"Honestly, we’re still at the black bag stage, so we’re jumping a quantum leap forward."
Cr O’Malley said the new bins put the city in a position where it could really pursue its zero-waste targets.
The two new green-lidded bins in combination with the unchanged yellow-lidded bin created an overall "less environmentally damaging" waste disposal system, by reducing the amount of waste that went to landfill and created methane.
Removing organic waste from the red bin would stop rotting material from contaminating other potential recyclables.
"I don’t think you can go much further than this, I think this is about as good as you could design a household system."
EnviroNZ South Island head of operations Rob Bright said the company was pleased to be part of the new initiative and expected to see a "significant reduction" in waste going to landfill.
The fleet of high-tech Mercedes rubbish trucks came equipped with cameras to track how much contamination occurred and identify when to dispose of it instead of taking it to recycling facilities, he said.
A pair of "bin cops" would also manually inspect recycling bins for misplaced waste before processing.
EnviroNZ would continue its commercial bin service but he anticipated a "significant drop-off" in demand with the introduction of the council’s service, which the company had planned for, Mr Bright said.
