Opinion: Kerbside collection a winning idea

A wheelie bin being emptied. Photo/file

The move towards a city-wide kerbside rubbish and recycling service has my tick of approval.

It was quite a shock to the system for me when I moved from Whakatane to Tauranga and saw all the rubbish bags left on the side of the road for collection, some of them ripped open by animals scattering rubbish all over the road and footpath.

It looked so messy and archaic.

My hometown has had ratepayer-funded kerbside rubbish collection since I can remember.

We had the big old green wheelie bins for years until the system was upgraded. We then used our big bins for green waste and were given much smaller wheelie bins for our rubbish and a plastic crate for our recycling.

There were many grumbles at first. Families who used to fill their big bins were aghast at the reduced size of the rubbish bins.

But we adjusted and, driving through the town on rubbish day, you'll see the crates on the side of the road overflowing with items to be recycled, which once would have been thrown into the big wheelie bins without a second thought.

Our city has two recycling centres, one in Greerton and one in Mount Maunganui.

People who care about reducing their waste are more than happy to make the trip to one of these centres to dispose of their recyclables, but for those more ambivalent about the environment, or people who don't like to drive across town to dispose of something they could chuck in a rubbish bag, it's a lot of effort for little reward.

Council-funded kerbside collection should see more people recycling more of their waste.

It should also mean our streets look a bit tidier, with orderly rows of wheelie bins lining the kerbs instead of ripped, leaking bags of rubbish.

Bring it on!