New business offers Whanganui kerbside waste collection

New business Low Cost Bins is to offer both bin and bag collection in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

A new business plans to offer rubbish bag collection as part of its Whanganui kerbside waste service.

Low Cost Bins will offer bins in three sizes, as well as a rubbish bag collection service, Whanganui District Council Waste Advisory Group chairman Rob Vinsen said.

Bag collection will be priced at around $3.80 per bag, depending on the outlet selling the stickers.

That service could be a lifeline for some, because the only business that collects rubbish bags now is Waste Management, and it intends to offer a bin-only service from next year.

Low Cost Bins operates in the lower North Island and Econowaste operates on Auckland's North Shore. Both are brands that operate under the umbrella of Northland Waste, which operates in Northland.

It is owned by former Whanganui resident Colin Cashmore and others, and is the third biggest waste operator in New Zealand.

Cashmore was once chairman of River City Port and had a contracting business in Whanganui, did subdivisions and owned quarries and farmland.

Cashmore sold his former waste collection business, Budget Waste, to Envirowaste. With Waste Management, it is one of Whanganui's two existing waste collectors.

Now Low Cost Bins will compete with both.

"Given the prices that consumers are paying, the Whanganui market was attractive for us to enter," Cashmore said.

Low Cost Bins will begin offering services in Whanganui in November. There will be an "eco-pay" option for bin users who will have money debited from an account whenever they put a bin out for collection.

"That means that you can pay per pick-up - potentially offering considerable savings to the most diligent waste minimisers," Vinsen said.

Whanganui District Council is undertaking a review of the way waste is managed, with new proposals due out by the end of this year.

At the council meeting on Tuesday, September 15, resident Frances Harris presented a petition signed by 112 people. It asks the council to provide a "simple kerbside rubbish collection".

Harris has researched what other councils provide and said some offer a full recycle system that costs less than the smallest bin offered in Whanganui.

The bin system proposed by Waste Management after it stops collecting bags will require people to be digitally connected. Harris said it will be "way too complicated for a lot of people".

"If council doesn't take responsibility for this, Whanganui will be the Garbage Capital of New Zealand and not get the pretty town award," she said.

But Cashmore said a user-pays system will be better for the "Whanganui granny" who only puts out one bag a month. A rates-funded system will be "one-size-fits-all without any possible innovation", he said.

His company aims to reduce 34 per cent of the waste it collects but he is not offering recycling options in Whanganui.

Vinsen said the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre is unlikely to accept plastics numbered 3, 4, 6 and 7 after December 31. However, he hopes to find a less costly way for it to continue accepting paper and cardboard for recycling.

Rural rubbish bag collection will also continue until July 31 next year.