“Only time will tell” if Rotorua’s introduction of separate food and organic rubbish collection bins will work, one resident says.
Rotorua Lakes Council announced on Monday it will introduce weekly food and green waste kerbside collection from July 2026, while its general rubbish collection will reduce to one fortnightly pick-up.
Some locals have expressed concerns about general waste moving from weekly to fortnightly collection, while others support the effort to send less waste to landfill.
The 80-litre bin will join the 140-litre general waste bin, 240-litre recycling bin and glass crate.
The bins will be serviced by Smart Environmental, which signed a nine-year contract after councillors voted to approve doing so in a confidential meeting last year.
The change will add just under $25 to ratepayers’ annual bills and was the result of a 2023 council decision following community consultation.
Councillors heard at the time how of 371 submissions, 14% wanted no change while 85% supported organics collection. Of the latter, 75% supported changing from weekly to fortnightly rubbish collection.
Councillors were told the expected cost to ratepayers was between $46 and $58 a year.
In response to questions from Local Democracy Reporting, a council spokesperson said the expected increase in rates changed to about $25 through the procurement process.
A range of opinions were expressed on social media following the Monday announcement.
Some worried for the reduction in frequency of the general waste collection, calling for bigger bins, while others felt it was a good move overall.
One commenter said: “Definitely not happy about this. My family hardly throw food waste [away] and recycle, yet my red bin needs to be emptied weekly. Ridiculous to force fortnightly bin collection.”
Another person suggested there would be an increase in rubbish dumping.
One commenter said, “A lot of people think putting lawn clippings and tree trimmings into the landfill is a good idea. I’m all for aiming to reduce household waste”, while another said they hated putting food scraps in their rubbish bin as it was “disgusting”.
One Rotorua resident Local Democracy Reporting spoke to said it would be interesting to see how successful the changes would be.
He wondered how it would impact private collection companies and said while the scheme could work, whether it would, “only time will tell”.
Hillcrest resident Penny Brady said some people already separated organics for compost and some did not.
“People may think they have to pay extra, but I support… the waste [going] to the right place.”
The council said the 80-litre bin was chosen as it could collect both green waste and food waste.
Extra space would be needed to store the new bins on properties, “but these will not take up much space and, as the council does currently, we would continue to have a flexible approach with residents who, for instance, live in multi-unit dwellings”, the spokesperson said.
They said total bin capacity would actually increase to 150 litres per week for the same waste stream.
The current level of service for general waste (the red bin) was based on a 140-litre bin being collected weekly.
“Splitting that fortnightly reduces it to 70-litre weekly for rubbish, but with 80-litre weekly for organic waste, that’s 150 [litres] per week.”
For a cost, people could get extra or bigger bins if needed, which was managed by Smart Environmental.
Rotorua’s landfill closed in 2017 and has since acted as a transfer station, with waste going to Te Puke.
Tauranga’s council introduced organic collection in 2021. In its first year, it almost halved the amount of household waste going to landfill and had collected more than five million kilos of food waste. It used 23-litre food scrap bins.
All food scraps and garden waste collected from the kerbside in Tauranga were composted in Waikato, to be used by farms and orchards across the Bay of Plenty and Waikato to help grow new food. General waste went to landfill in Hampton Downs.
Rotorua’s organic waste will be taken to Ecogas in Reporoa, where it will be processed using anaerobic digestion.
The facility generates electricity, heat, biogas and fertiliser as a byproduct, with nutrients returned to soils around the area.
On Monday, the council said the gross annual operating costs of the new service of $2.45 million would be offset by reduced landfill costs of about $1.6m.
This was based on 6000 tonnes of waste being diverted from the landfill and resulting in a net additional increase to the targeted rate of $24.71 per annum.
The council said the more waste diverted from the landfill, the lower the cost of the service.
The Ministry for the Environment provided $1.38m, through its Waste Minimisation Fund, to go towards buying the required bins.
Infrastructure and environment general manager Stavros Michael said the cost of sending household waste to landfill had continued to increase due to rising central government levies and changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme. These taxes comprised about 60% of landfill costs.
“Waste audits in our district indicate food and garden organics make up about 55% of household waste. With the introduction of organic waste collection, we expect to see the amount of landfilled kerbside waste halved and an 80% reduction in our kerbside waste carbon footprint.”
The new service will impact households and businesses in the urban and chiefly residential parts of the district.
It cited economic and environmental reasons for not including several rural areas.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.