Kerbside recycling consultation opens in Whanganui

While some people already composted food scraps, a kerbside food waste pick-up would be useful to all households, Alan Taylor said. Photo / Bevan Conley

Consultation has now opened for Whanganui District Council's annual and long-term plans - and whether to include kerbside recycling and food waste collections in them.

The annual plan sets out how council services and facilities are funded for the year.

After voting to bring in kerbside recycling and food waste collections in late 2021, the council now must consult the community before it amends its Long-Term Plan 2021-32 to include the new services.

Councillor Alan Taylor, who chairs the council's Infrastructure, Climate Change and Emergency committee, said Whanganui was one of only a few councils without kerbside recycling.

The council's Waste Plan estimated Whanganui could boost what it's recycling by an extra 800 tonnes a year with a kerbside collection, he said.

"Keeping food scraps out of rubbish bins seems like a small thing, but in terms of climate change it's a really important action to take.

"That's because food scraps rot without oxygen at the landfill, and this process produces greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change," Taylor said.

It was also likely central government would soon expect all councils to provide kerbside food waste collection and Whanganui was getting ahead of that, he added.

And while some people already composted food scraps, a kerbside food waste pick-up would be useful to all households, Taylor said.

"As it's a commercial collection, it would take things that can't go into a home compost, like cooked food, dairy, meat, fish and some compostable packaging."

Kerbside recycling would start in mid-2023 and take plastics 1, 2 and 5 as well as glass bottles and jars, aluminium and steel cans and paper and cardboard. Kerbside food waste collection would start in mid-2024.

Cost estimates for kerbside recycling are now nearly double what they were in last year's Waste Plan consultation - likely to be about $135 per household, per year.

For food waste the cost was about 50 per cent higher than last year's consultation - at $60 instead of $40, a year.

This was a result of inflationary cost rises, council said, as well as recycling costing more to process at facilities near Whanganui.

The council said its overheads also had to be included in the long-term plan amendment calculation, even though these would not be an extra charge to ratepayers, since they would be offset by reductions in other council rates.

"Even though cost estimates are now higher, we've managed to keep them in line with what other regions charge, like Palmerston North where the targeted rate for kerbside recycling is $2.50," the council's chief financial officer Mike Fermor said.

Fermor added that council had managed to keep its rate rise this year to 3.9 per cent below inflation, which is at about 6 per cent.

"This is one of the lowest rates increases in the region and it fits with what we indicated last year."

People can give their feedback to the council's annual plan and long-term plan amendments on the council's website or via hard copy from the Davis Central Library, the Gonville Library or council offices at 101 Guyton St.

The council's Revenue and Financing Policy consultation – which decides how the council's activities are funded – runs alongside the annual plan and long-term plan amendment consultation.

Both consultations close at 5pm on Friday, April 29.