The glass recycling bins at Bethlehem Town Centre were overflowing on Sunday afternoon. Photo / Warwick Downing
The glass recycling bins at Bethlehem Town Centre were overflowing on Sunday afternoon. Photo / Warwick Downing
It will cost $18-$22 per household per year for the Tauranga City Council to start a kerbside glass recycling collection, according to new estimates.
A week ago commercial rubbish collectors stopped accepting glass in recycling bins, forcing residents to take their glass to transfer stations or community collection points.
The Tauranga City Council has been flooded with complaints and in a meeting tomorrow afternoon will consider a proposal to start its own glass collection service later this year.
The council already wants to take over the city's kerbside rubbish and recycling collection, but the proposed rates-funded service would not start until 2020 or 2021 if approved.
In the meantime tonnes of recyclable glass could be put into the landfill by people unwilling or unable to use the drop-off system.
So council staff have proposed introducing a rates-funded glass-only kerbside collection by September - or possibly sooner.
They recommended supplying homes with a 45-litre crate for glass that would be collected and colour-sorted fortnightly by a contracted company.
Council staff estimate the cost to ratepayers would be $1.1m to $1.2m ($22 per household) to start the service some time before July or $900,000 to $1m ($18 per household) for a September start.
A monthly collection would be about 25 per cent cheaper, but the crate size may not change as it would still need to be lifted when full.
The council could seek funding from the Ministry for the Environment, the Glass Packaging Forum and O-I, the company that buys the glass, to help with set-up costs.
The council has already shelled out more than $100,000 on changes to recycling areas at its two transfer stations at Maleme St and Te Maunga to prepare them to cope with the expected increase in use.
Several other councils collect glass separately to other recycling, including Rotorua, Thames Coromandel, Wellington, Dunedin and New Plymouth.
Bethlehem resident Warwick Downing said he thought $22 was a "reasonable" price to pay for council-run kerbside glass recycling, though it would be on top of other recycling costs.
He paid about $90 a year to have his recycling collected.
Downing said he visited the Bethlehem Town Centre glass drop-off on Sunday afternoon and found bins overflowing and bottles and jars on the ground.
He was happy enough to drop his glass off in Bethlehem but would not be keen to have to go to a transfer station.
Downing was concerned the current system would mean many people would chuck their glass in the bin instead of recycling it.
Community recycling bins for glass have been installed around the city. Photo/Andrew Warner
Community bins overflow - especially green glass
New community glass recycling collection points have reported "overwhelming" weekend demand, with some adding bins and increasing pick-up frequencies as bins overflow.
Bethlehem Town Centre manager Andrew Wadsworth said they increased their number of bins from three to five yesterday and were having them emptied daily.
He said they were "caught off guard" by the popularity of the service on the weekend and bins were overflowing.
"It's been overwhelming. The green glass bin got the most use," he said.
Papamoa Beach Four Square owner Ben Duffield said the first week of hosting glass recycling bins had been "very busy".
Papamoa Beach Four Square owner Ben Duffield. Photo supplied
"Yesterday [Monday] we filled up plus some."
Waste Management was now making daily pick-ups, he said.
Feedback from customers was that that they were happy to have somewhere to take their glass but "not too happy they can't put it in their own bin", he said.
