They include doing more to keep organic material out of landfill, dealing more effectively with demolition waste and developing a resource recovery hub for the collection of recyclable material and sale of diverted items.
Such action has been signalled as the Dunedin City Council prepares to develop its next waste minimisation management plan.
A slide at a recent council workshop listed targets that included reducing the amount of material entering the waste management system by 10% per person by 2030 and reducing the amount of material that needed final disposal by 30% per person by 2030.
To achieve a target for reducing emissions from waste, one aim was "95% diversion of divertible food, garden and timber materials being sent to landfill".
A key plank of that starts today, as a separate kerbside collection begins for food scraps and garden waste from new green-lidded bins.
Council red-lidded bins for general rubbish also start their service today, replacing council rubbish bags.
The council’s black plastic bags will no longer be picked up from the end of this month.
Food scraps will initially be carted to Timaru until a composting facility is ready to run.
A review of the waste minimisation management plan is due to come before the council’s infrastructure services committee in August and public consultation is expected to happen in October and November.
Slides for last month’s workshop included "example actions" and many of them would flow from implementation of a 2030 zero-carbon plan.
It was signalled potential for a construction and demolition reuse hub would be explored in 2025-26.
A resource recovery hub for the collection and sale of recyclable material could be developed in 2025-30.
Community waste minimisation systems could be supported from 2025-30.
Collection of food scraps could be available for businesses in the city centre and South Dunedin by the end of 2029.
Councillors heard last week some facilities had proved to be much more expensive to build than had been anticipated three years ago.
The year-to-date budget for the organics facility for the 10 months ending April this year had been set at $1.52 million and the actual result was more than $4.5m.
The new collection system had a year-to-date budget for capital expenditure of $1m and the actual result was more than $3.8m.
Council waste and environmental solutions group manager Chris Henderson said at a meeting last week the council had to buy more bins than its initial purchase.
There had been additional design costs for the organics building and construction costs had in general increased markedly, he said.
The budget set during the 2021-31 long-term plan for this building was "insufficient to construct it".
Cr Lee Vandervis asked if staff had revisited the budgeting process "to see why it could be so far out of whack".
Mr Henderson said the capital budget for the 2024-25 year had been adjusted to account for inflationary pressure on construction costs.
Council chief executive Sandy Graham said economic conditions had changed significantly since the 2021-31 long-term plan was prepared.
