Strong views on Waste Plan from Whanganui residents

Rubbish: Whanganui District Council wants to get more proactive about waste. Photo / Bevan Conley

Only a minority of those set to speak to the Whanganui District Council on its new Waste Plan want the current system to remain.

The council's draft Waste Plan 2021 has attracted 220 written submissions, and 15 people want to speak to council when it goes over the submissions on November 10.

The council plan proposes a ratepayer-funded recyclables collection starting in 2023 and a ratepayer-funded food waste collection to start in 2024.

For rubbish collection, the council proposes leaving that to existing private companies but regulating how they do it with a waste bylaw.

Councillor Rob Vinsen (left) and waste advisor Stuart Hylton inform and consult residents from a market stall. Photo / supplied

The plan states the combination of services would reduce waste to landfill by an estimated 2500 tonnes a year.

Approval of a "pay as you throw" approach to waste - as part of the idea to keep the private companies picking up rubbish - was common across submitters, but most condemned having trucks from three different private businesses collect waste from the same streets.

Two groups, Sustainable Whanganui (SW) and the Green Party, would prefer one entity to collect waste rather than three.

"Be bold, take the whole process into public control," the SW submission said.

The environment group wants council to take over all waste collection and run a transfer station with a "tip shop" where items are pulled out of the waste stream. If the council collected bins they could be weighed and people could be charged on a "pay as you throw" basis, with a possible rates refunds for people producing less waste.

The transfer station could also handle construction and demolition waste, the submission said, diverting materials to new users.

Green Party co-convenor Jan Harrison said a council truck collecting recyclables and food waste, as the plan proposes, could surely collect rubbish as well.

Derek Pickering owns Easy Earth, a company that collects and composts food waste. He said in his submission that the proposed ratepayer-funded collection of recyclables and food waste will drive down the cost of rubbish disposal for many people, especially if "pay as you throw" bin systems are brought in.

He recommended phasing out the largest 240-litre bins, and keeping the composting local.

Composted food waste becomes an additive to improve soil health. Photo / Laurel Stowell

The $40 per household per year cost of food waste collection would make a business like his financially viable, Pickering said, if combined with other income from collecting business food waste and selling compost.

The food waste could be composted with green waste, and possibly even sludge from the wastewater treatment plant in future - making for more "green jobs", he said.

On behalf of the Kai Hub team, Joe Thompson said food that is edible should be diverted from the food waste, and community groups and schools could be given the resulting compost.

A smaller group of speakers were less concerned with sustainability.

One of the submitters going by the name 'Half Baked' said there were no markets for recyclables, and councils that collect them have material that they can't sell.

Jeff Smith said he wanted private businesses to continue to deal with all waste.

Councils collecting recyclables are being left with materials they can't sell, a submitter said. Photo / Bevan Conley

Kylie Wenmoth liked the addition of ratepayer-funded recyclables and food waste collection - but said rates shouldn't increase. Money to pay for the extra services should be diverted from less important work, she said, and people should have the chance to opt out.

The rate increases would be unfair on a single-person household, John McCall said, because a family would produce more rubbish. He objected to subsidising people who can't be bothered to go to the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre.

Hanne Andersen has a large bin, and fills most of it with the kind of green waste not acceptable for composting. She'd like Whanganui to have a good composting system to deal with her "noxious weeds".

"You say [green waste counts] for 13 per cent of what goes into landfills - surely it's worth doing something about it," she said.

A number of submitters are new residents to Whanganui, and moved from places with comprehensive council-run waste systems. Thompson said Whanganui was "behind the curve".

When she arrived in March, Dora Baker was "deeply shocked" to see several companies driving the same streets to collect waste.

"Do like most other councils do. Weekly kerbside collection of recyclables and rubbish for everyone, fortnightly kerbside collection of green-waste, if wanted and paid for by householders. At my previous residence this was $130 per annum with a gold card discount," she said.