All the new Hastings District Council recycling crates and rubbish wheelie bins have now been delivered to residents on collection routes, in preparation for the new kerbside waste collection services that start on July 1.
It's taken some time with delays due to COVID-19 restrictions, but Council is pleased to be introducing these new services that arose from the Hastings and Napier Joint Waste Management and Minimisation Plan consultation, and drew more than 6000 submissions from residents.
The overriding feedback in these submissions was that residents supported the councils' environmental protection aims to reduce the amount of domestic waste going to the Omarunui Landfill to help extend its life.
Currently, more than 98,000 tonnes of waste is sent to the landfill each year. About a quarter of this comes from kerbside collections, and a solid waste survey in 2019 showed that more than 60 per cent of kerbside rubbish bin content could instead be composted or recycled.
To help encourage better management of our waste we have introduced new recycling crates, and general rubbish wheelie bins that will replace the single-use plastic official (orange) council rubbish bags.
The kerbside rubbish collection service has been contracted to JJ's Waste & Recycling Ltd, and Smart Environmental Ltd has been awarded the recycling contract.
All rubbish and recycling needs to be put out on the kerb by 7am on people's collection day.
Recycling
For recycling, households have received three 45 litre black crates. Remember any crate, just separate into glass, paper and cardboard, and plastics and cans.
Thanks to now having new facilities, all grades of 1 and 2 plastic can be recycled – that means the likes of meat trays and fruit punnets as well as plastic bottles - but people need to make sure they check the number before putting items out for collection (it must be a 1 or 2).
There will be a separate truck used to collect the paper and cardboard as these are taken directly to local firm Hawk Packaging for recycling, so people are advised not to be alarmed if they are not picked up with the other recycling – they will be collected by 5pm on the collection day.
Rubbish
Households on kerbside collection routes have received a 120 litre wheelie bin for their general rubbish. Residents are being advised that from July 1, their rubbish collection day will change to the day after their recycling day (which remains the same). Check the sticker on the side of your rubbish wheelie bin.
With almost half of the waste going to landfill being organic waste, which doesn't fully break down and creates environmentally damaging methane gas and leachate, there will be a focus on removing garden waste from rubbish bins. This can be achieved by residents using other green waste disposal methods, such as a private provider or dropping off at BioRich, council transfer stations or home composting.
In the future, we hope to be able to move to a system that will incentivise and reward those that create less waste and put their bins out less often. Only placing your bins out if they are full will help us scale the service to match demand. The RFID tags on the wheelie bins, in particular, will enable us to collect the data required for the design of this system.
Food waste
Council is not providing a collection service and kitchen scraps can be disposed of in the general rubbish bin if residents don't have compost bins, worm farm and bokashi bin at home. These are all good options for disposing of your food waste at home and keeping your rubbish bin free from odours. If you use a private green waste collection service, check with the provider about the possibility of putting food scraps in that bin.
For all the detailed information on our new rubbish and recycling services go to the website www.hastingsdc.govt.nz/waste