Rotorua residents' new wheelie bins for kerbside rubbish and recycling collection are being delivered this week ahead of the new service starting on October 31.

Until then residents will continue using the paper rubbish bags.

Rotorua's new rubbish and recycling bins will soon be delivered to homes throughout the city. Supplied Photo.

The new service will use two bins, one for rubbish and a larger one for recycling and a crate for glass.

The red lidded rubbish bin, which has the capacity of about two paper bags, will be collected every week. While the yellow lidded recycling bin is larger and will be emptied along with the glass crate every two weeks.

Every second week residents will put out their rubbish bin plus their recycling wheelie bin and glass crate. People will be encouraged to 'wash and squash” recyclables to fit more into their bin, and the city recycling centre will still be able to be used.

The change involves the delivery of about 25,000 sets of bins and crates, says Rotorua Lake Council's transport and waste solutions director Stavros Michael.

'It would be impractical and unsafe for us to congest the streets with hundreds of bins. We are delivering bins on one side of the street at a time and will return later to deliver bins for the other side,” says Stavros.

'We want to reassure people that if they see their neighbour across the road has received their bins, there's no need to worry – theirs will be coming on a different day.”

The reason behind the changeover from bags to bins is Rotorua's current fleet of rubbish trucks needs replacing and it was considered a good time to review services and consider a more efficient modern service, explains Stavros.

There are a number of things council aims to achieve:

• Increase the amount of recycling by making it easy for residents to sort waste and meet community demand for kerbside recycling. An immediate, significant increase in recycling is expected.
• Reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill and associated environmental risks.
• Reduce the cost of services – this new service will provide an initial annual saving of approximately $500,000 compared with the current council-run service. Rotorua is one of the few districts still using paper bags so the cost of buying those has increased.
• Reduce health and safety risks and injury rates associated with the current, largely manual collection service.

Services in lakes and rural communities will be different and have been worked through with residents there. These services will be a mix of bins and bags and/or transfer station facilities.

An information booklet which includes collection days and other details will be delivered with the bins. Find out all about the new service here.