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Bag it or Bin it?

What’s the future of our kerbside rubbish collection?

Bag it or Bin it?

THIS PROJECT WILL BE FUNDED BY RATES

What's the problem?

The community has been telling us we need to improve our rubbish and recycling collection and we know there is a real appetite for us to switch to bins. In a 2023 survey 75 percent of the 1272 responses favoured moving to wheelie bins over the current rubbish bags and recycling crates.

The current bag system is a pay-as-you-throw setup where people buy yellow rubbish bags, or orange stickers, as needed. But it’s not perfect - animals rip the bags open and sharp objects sticking out can injure our collectors. On windy days, recycling items get blown out of recycling crates. Many other districts have moved to wheelie bins for health, safety and environmental reasons.

Because people can put out as many rubbish bags as they like, there is little incentive to reduce the amount of rubbish going to the landfill, filling it up faster and increasing our operating costs. Moving to wheelie bins limits how much rubbish can be thrown out and encourages us to recycle more.

Regardless of which option we choose we will provide a new weekly food scraps collection service with a 23-litre bin. We can recycle these food scraps, to reduce the rate at which the landfill is filled up and reduce costs. This also allows us to move to a fortnightly rubbish collection which saves more money.

Proposed option - Bin it

Switch from user-pays rubbish bags to rates-funded wheelie bins for residential, Taupō and Tūrangi town centres and neighbourhood shops (our preferred option)

What is proposed

From 1 July 2025, we would replace the current rubbish bag and recycling crate collection with a set of wheelie bins. This service would switch weekly between rubbish and recycling with food scraps collected weekly. That means that one week, your rubbish and food scraps would be collected. The next week, your recycling and food scraps would be collected.

For serviced residential areas:

  • 140-litre rubbish bin, 240-litre recycling bin and 23-litre food waste bin and up to two 45-litre glass crates.
  • Weekly food waste collection.
  • Rubbish and recycling collection to be weekly during the summer peak and fortnightly for the rest of the year.
  • A service to put bins back for users who are medically unable to do it themselves. This would be covered by rates.

For Taupō and Tūrangi town centres and neighbourhood shops:

  • A 240-litre wheelie bin for rubbish, a 240-litre wheelie bin for recycling, and a 23-litre food waste bin and up to two 45-litre crates for glass
  • Weekly service, moving to twice weekly over peak.

For rural:

The current service provided to rural areas and those outside the Council collection service is a commercial arrangement which Council has no control over. These households will need to talk directly with companies that could provide this service, with no guarantee that it will continue to be provided in the future.

✔️ Improves health and safety. Contractors won’t be cut by sharp things sticking out of bags or injure themselves lifting bags.
✔️ No risk of animals ripping open rubbish bags, or rubbish and recycling blowing around and getting into our waterways.
✔️ Reduces the amount of rubbish and food waste we dump, saving Council money purchasing carbon credits.
✔️ Some households will save money through switching from private rubbish services to the new Council-provided wheelie bins.
✔️ Would encourage recycling by restricting how much rubbish can be thrown out and only collecting once a fortnight for most of the year.
❌ Issues for holiday home users getting wheelie bins back in from kerbside.
❌ Bins take up more space on people’s property.
❌ A new service would be a big change for the community and require additional Council resources for education and roll-out.
❌ Requires an enforcement programme to avoid people putting rubbish in their recycling bin and contaminating recycling.
❌ Capital costs for bin infrastructure and ongoing replacement.
❌ Increased costs for households and businesses that currently produce low amounts of waste.

  • There is an upfront cost of approximately $3 million to purchase the new bins and ongoing cost each year for new homes built or to replace damaged bins.
  • This will result in interest costs of $952,225 over the life of the long-term plan.
  • Depreciation costs are estimated to be $3,027,921 over the life of this long-term plan.
  • We estimate the programme to be $4.7 million per annum.

  • From 2025 for residential: Estimated annual cost for a household is $366 in rates with no user fees.
  • From 2025 for Taupō and Tūrangi town centre and neighbourhood shops: Estimated annual cost is $644 in rates with no user fees.

  • 1 July 2025: New wheelie bin service introduced
  • to 2035: Contracted for 10-year period

Alternative option - Bag it

Stick with the current pre-paid rubbish bags and recycling crates for residential, Taupō and Tūrangi town centres and neighbourhood shops

The alternative option is similar to the current system, with the addition of the food waste collection. It will cover residential and Taupō and Tūrangi town centres and neighbourhood shops:

  • ‘Pay-as-you-throw’ weekly rubbish collection for residential users.
  • ‘Pay-as-you-throw’ twice-weekly rubbish collection for Taupō, Tūrangi town centres and neighbourhood shops.
  • Rates-funded weekly recycling crates and 23-litre food waste bin collections.

The current service provided to rural areas and those outside the Council collection service would stay the same. This is a commercial arrangement which Council has no control over and will likely need to be negotiated with commercial operators.

✔️ The community is familiar with this service.
✔️ Simple weekly collection.
✔️ No increased bin storage needed.
✔️ Users can directly control their costs by managing the amount of waste they throw out.
✔️ Because it’s largely a user-pays service, households and businesses can choose the service that suits best from a range of different bags and bins provided by commercial operators.
✔️ Users can use as many bags or wheelie bins as required.
✔️ The current recycling process reduces contamination as materials that are not recyclable are left behind.
❌ Health and safety concerns from bags, including injuries from sharp items and repetitive lifting.
❌ Environmental concerns from animals damaging rubbish bags and recycling being blown about.
❌ Doesn’t encourage more recycling as there is no limit on the amount of rubbish put at the kerbside, leading to the landfill capacity being used up faster.
❌ Peak periods create large volumes of rubbish and recycling on the kerbside which creates collection issues and increases environmental issues.

There is no debt impact for this option.

  • From 2025 for residential: Estimated average cost per household per year of $340, consisting of $184 in rates and $156 for rubbish bags (based on one bag per week)
  • From 2025 forTaupō and Tūrangi town centres and neighbourhood shops: Estimated average cost per business per year of $688, consisting of $376 in rates and $312 for rubbish bags (based on two bags per week)

  • 2025: Current services continued
  • to 2035: Contracted for 10-year period

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