Dunedin residents have spoken, and spoken loudly, on the future of the city's rubbish collection service.
Now, it is just a matter of figuring out exactly what they said.
Dunedin City Council solid waste manager Ian Featherston said 10,110 completed surveys on rubbish and recycling options for the city had been received by the deadline of 5pm on Friday - a return rate of "just over 20%".
That compared with a national average for survey returns of about 5%, including other surveys in Dunedin, and a similar survey in 2002 which elicited just 800 responses in a month.
The responses have been shipped for processing by Christchurch-based company The Field Connection, whose staff had originally been told to expect about 3000 returns.
The large volume of responses meant processing the data was expected to take some time, with a final report summarising residents' opinions not expected to be finished until mid-December, he said.
The report would be presented to the council's infrastructure services committee meeting in January, before a second round of public consultation on "fine-tuned" options and more de-tailed costings early next year, he said.
Nevertheless, the response rate had impressed council staff, even after delivery glitches meant delays for some rural parts of the city.
"It's been a big 'wow' for everyone. The city is really speaking, so that's why we are taking the time and effort to consider things really carefully," Mr Featherston said.
It was clear residents were more focused on issues of sustainability and the cost of rubbish disposal, which was something that impacted on every household, he said.
Last month, he said there were also early indications from returns of reasonable support for wheelie bins, replacing the blue bins at present in use, and a 50-50 split in support for a green-waste service.
A separate telephone survey of 300 randomly selected respon-dents from around Dunedin was also under way this week, which was aimed at people who did not necessarily feel strongly enough to return written surveys.
Any change in the system was not expected until late next year or 2010.
