Backlash tipped on big-bin ban

By Simon Hendery

Auckland City Council is braced for a trashing from ratepayers after deciding this week it will phase out the large rubbish wheelie-bins.

The council admits it expects a backlash from angry residents after voting on Thursday night to start gathering in, from next year, the waste-hungry 240-litre bins which Aucklanders love to fill.

Councillors - wary of the city's burgeoning bill for rubbish collection and disposal - voted to replace the bins with a half-sized 120-litre version as the large models wear out.

They have an "expectation" that all 240-litre bins will be out of circulation by June 2002, but a senior councillor, Doug Astley, said he saw difficulties with the timetable because some people would fight to retain their larger bins.

Thursday's decision overturned a works committee recommendation that the big bins remain indefinitely for residents who were prepared to pay the extra charge.

The council says households opting to stick with the large bins until the change-over will pay a new $175-a-year rubbish charge from next July, while those who switch to the smaller bins will see a lesser $88 annual fee appear on their rates demands.

The move - part of the city's new waste management strategy - aims to reduce Auckland's annual 380,000-tonne garbage pile by putting domestic rubbish collection on a transparent, user-pays footing.

A report prepared for the council's works committee earlier this month said smaller bins could cut the annual rates-funded rubbish collection and disposal bill from $15.5 million to $4.7 million.

But Councillor Astley, who chairs the committee, said rounding up the city's 110,000 large bins could take much longer than councillors hoped.

The bins are owned by firms contracted to the council to collect rubbish. It is the waste collection companies' responsibility to repair or replace broken bins and Councillor Astley said he saw the potential for "all sorts of fun and games" as ratepayers resisted having their aging bins replaced with the smaller model.

"It's going to take quite a few years for that to work through and I think it will tend to slow down the benefits that we're wanting."

Penrose ward councillor Catherine Harland said the last-minute change of policy came "out of the blue," without sufficient consultation, and even council staff were confused about what it would mean.

"This is a draconian solution - to suggest that every household can manage their weekly waste with one 120-litre bin. It is a knee-jerk reaction rather than thinking through all the implications."

Rob Fenwick , a director of the Onehunga-based Living Earth Company, which specialises in recycling organic waste, praised the move to phase out large bins.

"It will encourage people to separate waste streams at home and should be a tangible step in the council reaching its waste management goals, which were pretty ambitious."