Covid 19 coronavirus: Auckland Council reveals why rubbish collectors are leaving tags on bins

Auckland Council is asking residents of New Zealand's biggest city to take an honest approach to rubbish collection during the lockdown.

Rubbish collectors would not be cutting tags off of bins during the lockdown in a bid to minimise contact they have with residents' bins.

Instead, residents were asked by the council to remove tags themselves after each collection and replace them with a fresh tag before the next.

Social media users had taken to community groups about the tags, with some claiming the council was not charging during the lockdown.

However, it was not the case, an Auckland Council spokeswoman told the Herald.

"We are reliant on everyone doing their part by replacing their own tags during these extraordinary times," she said.

"The bin tags are the only method that users pay for this service, as it is not part of their rates."

Tags stopped being collected on Monday, April 2, an Auckland Council spokeswoman told the Herald.

It comes after experiments in the United States had found coronavirus was capable of infecting a person for up to three days on plastic.

Auckland Council first started dumping plastic orange rubbish bags for the pre-paid tag system in October 2017.

Since then, the pay-as-you-throw system had started rolling out throughout the region.

The tag system was tipped to be more economical, as one full bin was equivalent to two orange bags.

It was also to prevent rubbish collectors from getting hurt on the job or bags getting attacked by animals, resulting in the rubbish all over the kerb.