Auckland food waste collection service roll out delayed by a year

Sunday, 7 July 2019

Dumpster diving is illegal, but those who do it say it's just food going to waste.

Aucklanders' food scraps won't be collected until at least 2021 - a year later than first planned - because services won't be ready on time.

The rollout of the kerbside food scraps collection service across the city was meant to be completed by 2020.

But the council said the region's size and scale was to blame for the holdup, with organisations taking time to develop the 'capacity and capability' required to meet the service's demand.

The service hopes to reduce the 100,000 tonnes of food scraps Aucklanders send to landfill each year.

However, 'procurement' was underway for the service's region-wide rollout, the council assured.

* Food waste collection begins in Papakura, marking start of city's zero-waste goal

* Auckland's new waste collection sparks calls of confusion**

The rollout will follow a food scraps bin trial introduced in Papakura in 2018, as part of Auckland Council's push to get the region waste free by 2040.

Aucklanders throw out about 100,000 tonnes of food in their rubbish bins per year, which goes directly to landfill.

The new service is expected to divert about half of that.

However, it is not expected to be rolled out in rural communities because households often processed their own food waste and indicated they didn't want to pay a targeted rate for the service.

Papakura was the first suburb to work towards a zero-waste lifestyle in 2018, receiving six litre food waste caddies and 23 litre bins.

Auckland's first food scraps collection trial was on the North Shore in 2014.

Food scraps, such as fruit or vegetable peelings, meal leftovers, bread, pasta and rice, dairy products, meat, bones and shellfish shells, coffee grounds, and tea bags, can be placed in the kerbside food scraps bin.

Other organic matter, such as garden waste, cannot be placed in them.

Rolled out to about 17,000 households in the area, the first month of the new service saw more than 70 tonnes of food scraps sent to composting processing plants.

Costing an extra $67 a year through rates, the service, has seen about 112 tonnes of food scraps diverted from landfill each month.

The 23-litre food waste bin and the six-litre food waste caddy are already in operation in Papakura.

On average, households in Papakura are putting out about 3.6 kilograms of food scraps for the collection.

Parul Sood, Auckland Council's waste solutions programme director, said the service had been a 'significant behaviour change' for residents.

She said it would take time for the suburb to achieve the target levels which had been set - a weekly rate of 55 per cent, 4.5kg of food waste per household a week, and 2350 tonnes per year.

Currently, the average set out rate on any given week is 34 per cent.

'The community, to date, has been extremely supportive and positive about the introduction of the kerbside collection service.'

Once collected, the food waste is processed into compost or fertiliser and is used in agriculture, fruit and vegetable growing, and farming across the upper North Island.