Ask Phoebe: Rubbish inspectors audit bin contents

Red- and blue-lidded bins are checked regularly. Photo / Dean Purcell

Occasionally a nondescript van arrives in our street early on rubbish collection day. Two men empty the contents of several 120-litre red-lidded bins into individual large clear plastic bags. They write something on the bags, load them into the van and drive off. Is this a council audit to ensure people are not putting prohibited material out with the rubbish? Natalie McIntyre, Grey Lynn.

We can relax, Natalie. It's not the SIS. An audit is exactly what it is.

Auckland City Council regularly samples the contents of the blue-lidded recycling bins and the red-lidded rubbish bins. The staff on bin patrol are checking if people are putting the wrong stuff in their bins, such as hazardous material, which can cause problems for trucks and recycling plants.

For example, some people put grass clippings in their recycle bins. If the council starts to see a pattern in a particular area, it can then let people know that there are alternatives such as composting.

Once every three months the council has a go at the red-lid bins too. The rubbish is taken away and analysed separately before being sent to landfill.

The analysis helps the council understand the composition of the city's waste, and what policies it could put in place to reduce or divert the amount. For example, audits show that around 30 per cent of the rubbish bins are filled with organic waste, such as vegetable peelings, grass clippings and tree prunings.

If the council was looking at another diversion campaign or bin collection service, it might focus on the possibilities of an organic waste collection service. This would have the double benefit of reducing the amount of landfill waste by 30 per cent, and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from the methane generated by decomposing food.

Thanks to sloped ramps on kerbs, I am able to travel all around Freemans Bay and Ponsonby on my mobility scooter. However, I have no option but to head into the traffic at the corner of College Hill and Scotland St, directly opposite New World, as there is no ramp there. Are there any plans to rectify this? Mollie Whiting, Freemans Bay.

Yes, there are. The council will put in what it calls a "pram crossing", which of course can also be used by mobility scooters, on the western side of the College Hill/Scotland St intersection, and it will also put a cut-through on the traffic island that is there now. The aim is to have it in place by the end of January.

I would like to know if anything is ever going to be done about the realignment of the dangerous section of Chapel Rd in East Tamaki, namely the 100m of road north of the Ormiston Rd intersection, which contains the bridge. Little seems to have been done to this since the days of horse and cart, although I have only been using it for the last 40 years. Now two people have been killed when their vehicle hit the bridge abutments. I thought a new bridge and road section had been planned years ago, yet still nothing has changed. Can you find out please? Bob McGillivray, Dannemora.

The Chapel Rd bridge is scheduled for replacement by 2016. Yes, that's seven years away. Manukau City Council has already started the preliminary design work, including working out how much land is required, for the new bridge as well as the straightening and upgrading of the section of Chapel Rd between Ormiston and Stancombe Rds.