The Dunedin City Council began the delivery of the first of the new red and green bins in St Clair yesterday to prepare for the switch to the new system in July, when pre-paid council rubbish bags will be replaced by a bin for rubbish and a bin for food scraps.
Council environmental solutions group manager Chris Henderson said the moves would reduce waste to landfill and reduce the council’s emissions.
"More than that the organic waste especially is a source of greenhouse gas emissions, so we have to do our part to reduce that."
There would be more than 104,000 bins delivered to Dunedin homes over the next few weeks, he said.
"It’s a big logistical exercise trying to ensure the council had the full complement of bins ready to roll out.
"We're looking to achieve 8000 tonnes less waste going into landfill each year, and ideally we would like to see that number double."
He asked Dunedin residents to be patient waiting for their bins, and not to use them until the switch-over in July, he said.
"We have some small 23-litre bins that are being held up by the shipping delays due to the conflict in Gaza. About 1200 customers won't receive those bins until mid-June, so don't worry if they take a bit of time to get here."
The DCC rates costs for the full four-bin service in the draft annual plan is $301.50, compared with the existing kerbside recycling charges of $106.10.
Cr Jim O’Malley said the roll-out was significant.
"This brings us to the top end of the national standards ... it’s been four years in the making. It takes a long time to do this.
"The main outcome in separating the green waste is that allows us to avoid putting organic material into the landfill.
"It will also have an impact on our emissions trading scheme outcomes, which are already upwards of $2million at the Green Island landfill. So there’s an economic as well as an environmental component."
Cr O’Malley said he already composted all of his food and garden waste.
"But if we were going to do an opt-in/opt-out option, it could lead to landowners not supplying their tenants with bins, so the only way to do this efficiently is to make it universal."
The green-lidded food scraps and garden waste recycling bin will be collected weekly, and the red-lidded rubbish bin will be collected fortnightly. Residents will continue to use their yellow-lidded mixed recycling bin for paper, plastic and steel and aluminium cans, and their blue recycling bins for glass as usual.
