Bigger tip shop and new bins to reduce waste

Monday, 11 September 2023

The Tip Shop is thriving on Sunday afternoon with people dropping off old landline phones, board games, coat stands, a window in its frame and even a gas barbecue.

The shop — part of the “Resource Recovery Network” in waste policy terms — is almost at capacity and has to turn goods away when busy. It’s likely to get a multimillion dollar expansion and an inner-city shop, as one of the the Wellington City Council’s moves to crack down on the amount of waste going to landfill.

The council plan also includes a set of new bins for each home, including a wheelie bin for general rubbish and a new bin for food scraps and garden organics. Currently the council only collects rubbish from the yellow council rubbish bags.

Deputy mayor Laurie Foon said it was a “big leap forward” but Wellington had been “alarmingly” behind other cities including Auckland and Christchurch, which already collected food waste.

“The take, make, waste system we’ve been using is no longer viable from an emissions perspective or from a land-use perspective. We need to start making changes now.”

According to the council, food waste makes up 60% of household rubbish sent to landfills — 3.2kg from each household, each week.

The council had set a goal of making the latest landfill extension in Happy Valley its last one, and a lot of waste diversion from the landfill was needed to achieve that.

On average, Wellingtonians threw away 206kg of waste per year compared with just 110kg per person in Christchurch.

The new system would separate out organic waste from landfill waste, by providing each household with four bins: a glass crate, rubbish wheelie bin, recycling wheelie bin and a joint wheelie bin for food and garden waste.

The food and garden bin would be collected weekly, while the others would have fortnightly collections.

The bins and their collection would be funded through a targeted rate of $258 per household per year — less than the cost for a privately collected wheelie bin (around $400 a year).

Foon said the system would be an improvement for the city, even though it would move away from a “polluter pays” system where people paid for the amount of rubbish they generated. Her family’s annual bill for rubbish bags was just $43, but she believed the new system would be better for everybody.

The organic waste collection would also require a new processing facility, shared between Porirua, Lower Hutt and Wellington. Wellington’s share of the cost would come to about $22.8m.

$15m of this would come from the ring-fenced Landfill Surplus Fund, which is intended to be used for the waste system.

Expanding the Tip Shop, with a larger site on Happy Valley Rd and a hub where people could drop items off in the city as well, was another part of the strategy.

As well as providing more bins and separating out types of waste, the council wanted people to consider whether they even needed to throw something out.

“It’s about starting the practice and changing behaviours, showing people that they can donate items to be reused,” Foon said.

The expansion would cost about $5.9m, taken from existing funds in the budget along with special funds from a ring-fenced landfill surplus fund.

The council was in talks with the Sustainability Trust to set up a test shop with a similar model to the Tip Shop on Forresters Lane in the city. That would allow city-dwellers who did not have a car to donate their items.

The Environment and Infrastructure Committee will discuss the waste reduction options on Thursday. If approved, the preferred options will go out for public consultation next year.