The task of delivering 165,000 new recycling, rubbish and food scraps bins to 55,000 homes across Tauranga is complete.
But you shouldn't start using your fancy new bins just yet.
"The service starts from July 1," said Sam Fellows, sustainability and waste manager, Tauranga City Council.
"If you want to know what day to put your bin out look at the sticker on the side of the bin, which has the day and the week number and then look at the calendar. That will tell you which service goes out on which day."
Council rubbish bags will no longer be picked up from the first of July.
"If you still have some council rubbish bags you can take them to the transfer stations for free and they'll get taken," said Fellows.
"If you have excess rubbish, you can take any black rubbish bag to our Te Maunga transfer station for a flat $3.50 fee rather than paying the usual $17 for a carload."
The new service comes with a fleet of state-of-the-art collection trucks.
"As part of this service we're getting 33 brand new trucks, a mixture of rubbish, recycling, food waste and glass trucks. Three of these will be electric trucks and we'll be testing them out on our roads and if they're successful we'll look at getting more electric trucks."
Come collection day, there'll also be a reduction in the number of rubbish trucks on your street.
"Because we're going with one company it means there'll only be one truck down each road for each of the services," said Fellows.
"For example, on recycling day you'll have your recycling, food waste and glass truck whereas in previous weeks there could be five or six different companies going up and down your street."
Marty Hoffart, director of Waste Watchers, said the changes are good news for Tauranga.
"Finally, we're going to be at the point where we're all diverting waste from landfill, rather than some of us recycling and some of us not recycling.
"For the last two decades we've had a privatised system and some people weren't even recycling at home. Some people weren't recycling food scraps or composting. So what it means is everybody will now have a recycling bin and everybody will be able to divert food scraps from the landfill."
But the benefits will be far more widespread.
"The most harmful thing we bury are food scraps," said Hoffart.
"So, banana skins, potato peel and carrot peelings… when they go to a landfill, they create methane gas. When they're composted above the ground the only by-product is water vapour. It's very good for the planet."
The green food waste bin is easier to use than some might think.
"This is going to be new for a lot of people because we haven't been able to get food scraps picked up at the kerbside," said Hoffart.
"The great thing about this is that it can take meat and bones and fish and lemon skins and other things that you might not put in your backyard work farm or compost bin.
"This lives outside with your other bins and the easiest thing to do would be to put your food scraps into an ice cream container or some other container. Simply empty them out when you've got a full container inside. Keep the lid closed, it actually locks. The bin should be presented with the handle up, like a chilly bin, it locks shut, and it can be left on the curbside on collection day."
And here's a pro tip for keeping the green bin clean.
"Council will allow you to line it with a paper bag, and you can put your food scraps in there which could keep your bin cleaner. Or some people may choose to line it with newspaper to help keep the bin a little bit cleaner," said Hoffart.
The yellow recycling bin can now be used to recycle more plastics than before, it's not to be used for glass,
"For years we've been able to recycle plastic number one and two at the kerbside. We can now do plastic number five as well. Paper, cardboard, aluminium cans and of course we don't put glass in the yellow-lidded wheelie bin," Hoffart said.
There's no change to glass recycling, which is still done with the blue bin.
"Take the lids off your bottles and jars. Make sure you don't overfill it because it becomes dangerous for the guys to pick it up. Otherwise, I think most of us are pretty good at recycling our glass now."
And here's a quick refresher on the red bin.
"I think most people know what landfill is but don't put grass clippings, food scraps, recyclable containers, paper cardboard into the landfill bin. The whole idea with the new bins is that there's enough room in these other bins that we don't have to stick glass bottles and grass clippings and organics into the landfill bin."
Fellows added that it's important not to overfill your bins.
"Make sure that when you put your bins out that the bin lid closes, otherwise litter will get everywhere and your bin won't necessarily get picked up," he said.
If you're still unsure what goes where, consult the bin lid, or better still, give the brochure that came inside your new food waste bin a good read.
Made with funding from