At Council’s meeting on the 27 March, it was decided to change out the Big Belly rubbish bins in public spaces for standard 240 litre wheelie bins, placed in in powder coated aluminium shells with narrower access slots and reduce the number of bins across the district by thirteen.
Mayor Toby Adams said that public rubbish bins are not being used effectively.
“They have a huge price tag and it’s coming out of your rates, hence we’ve got to make some changes”, he said.
Council currently manages 100 public rubbish bins, 60 of which are Big Belly bins.
The issues with the current public bins are:
- With the wider bin opening, people are regularly using them to dispose of larger quantities of household rubbish.
- The separate bins for recycling, glass and rubbish are not being used properly. The recycling is often so contaminated that it is not cost effective or safe to separate it by hand, so the contents of contaminated recycling bins end up going to landfill anyway.
- The 13 bins to be removed are either due to misuse, such as excessive household rubbish, or have very little use.
In addition, the Big Belly bins have to be emptied manually which, due to health and safety reasons, puts a limit on how heavy they can be before they’re emptied. At the moment, due to weight, they are being emptied at 50% capacity, which is not providing the labour saving costs anticipated.
Council agreed to:
- Remove 13 Big Belly bins completely (due to excessive misuse or under-utilised)
- Replace 49 street Big Belly bins with aluminium powder coated 2-way bin shell and standard 240ℓ wheelie bin inserts.
- Replace 11 Big Belly bins located in Parks, Reserves and Sport grounds (beyond main centres and off main roads) with 240ℓ wheelie bins on a litterbin stand that prohibits the lid to be lifted too wide.
- Procure a new rear loader garbage truck to service all district-wide public litter bins.
- Remove the existing litter bins from 1029 East Coast Road, Kaiaua.
- Remove 12 recycling bin units (provided as a free trial from the Packaging Forum) and replace with aluminium powder coated 2-way bin shell and standard 240ℓ wheelie bin inserts.
Mayor Toby said that the thing with the items found in the dumped household rubbish bags or even litter on the side of the road, is that so much of it can and should be recycled for free – it’s free to dispose of in the proper bins; at Council refuse transfer stations and in household kerbside bins.
“So the argument that people are fly tipping or putting household rubbish in public bins because of the disposal cost is not the whole story”, said Mayor Toby.
“It’s also a damn shame that we’ve gone to all this effort to put up bins for recycling and people are putting their normal rubbish in them”, he added.
Council education boards placed beside the recycling bins with clear instructions for use, have not deterred people from using them incorrectly, leaving no alternative but for contaminated recycling to end up in landfill.
Recycling goes home
Once all the public bins are for rubbish only, people will need to take their cans and bottles home to be recycled in their kerbside recycling bin. Visitors to the district can either take their recycling home with them or drop them off for free at our Waihī and Paeroa Refuse transfer stations, or the Ngātea Recycling Centre.
www.hauraki-dc.govt.nz/rubbish-recycling/rubbish-disposal-sites
Dedicated rear loader truck and operator
A promising outcome however is that not only will these changes save $100K in labour costs, it also enables Council to purchase a dedicated rear loader truck so the wheelie bins will be emptied into the truck mechanically. This allows the 240 litre bins to reach full weight before emptying.
The dedicated rubbish truck will also be used to clear up fly tipping; respond to some missed kerbside collections and, in general, provide a timely, dedicated service with a driver/operator.
“We know, and really appreciate, that there are absolutely committed recyclers in our district who will be disappointed that the town centre recycling bins are going. The message is for everyone to do the right thing and dispose of recycling at home or at our facilities. If it’s unavoidable and it ends up in a public rubbish bin, it will, unfortunately, end up in landfill”, said Mayor Toby.
