Food waste collection coming to Auckland

Auckland Council wants to get food out of your rubbish, with a city-wide food waste collection to be rolled out by the end of the decade.

The council's Waste Solutions department manager Ian Stupple said the 23-litre lockable food waste bin, supplemented by a seven-litre kitchen caddy, will be collected from city kerbs each week by 2019/20.

At the moment, the average rubbish bag or bin is almost half-filled with food waste, with about 10 per cent each recyclables and green waste and only the remaining third actual rubbish, he said.

The roll-out is part of a plan for a uniform waste collection system, which will eventually see alternating, user-pays fortnightly kerbside collection of rubbish and recycling from legacy council areas amalgamated to form the SuperCity six years ago.

That's part of agreement reached in 2012 as part of the Waste Management and Minimisation Plan, which also set goals on waste reduction targets.

"We've done a lot of research on what best practice in the world is particularly those that are committed to zero waste and food waste collection is quite common.

"You minimise your waste, you recycle lots, you use your food waste, what is there to put in your bin then? And then you can choose and manage your costs around the size of the bin and how often you put it out.

"We know people who never put a bin out."

Following consultation, rural Auckland households will not be offered food waste collection.

Procurement was under way for a processing plant to collect the estimated 50,000 tonnes of food waste that will be treated and turned into compost each year, Stupple said.

Revenue from this, and from methane captured and sold back to the grid, will off-set the cost of an eventual targeted rate, he said.

A food waste pilot scheme has already been in place for 2000 North Shore households for the past two and a half years.

Parul Sood with the food waste container and kitchen caddy.