Tauranga City Council's new rates-funded kerbside glass collection service will start on October 1.

All residential properties in Tauranga will receive a blue crate by the end of this month, along with an information brochure – which is taped securely to the bottom of each crate- to explain how the fortnightly service works.

Environment Committee chair Steve Morris is excited about the new service as it will enable and encourage more people to recycle glass, reducing the amount that is unnecessarily put into landfill.

'When private collection companies stopped accepting glass for recycling at the kerbside in March this year, we were really concerned about the impact on the environment and our city,” says Steve.

'We are certainly well behind other city councils in terms of a service that they provide in terms of rubbish, recycling and glass. Glass was the service that was withdrawn by the private businesses earlier this year and we moved as quickly as we could to provide a council service and I am really proud of how quickly the staff worked in getting it up and running.

'I am really impressed with how quickly it took for them to get onto it. We gave them the task a couple of months back in June and we instructed our staff to get on and provide for our city and on October 1, the first collection is happening.”

'We propose a council-led, rates-funded solution in the 2018-28 Long Term Plan, which was strongly supported by the community,” says Steve.

Tauranga is one of the last cities in New Zealand to move from privately-led to Council-led kerbside collections, and will provide a full kerbside service for rubbish, mixed recycling and organic waste in 2021.

Glass from Tauranga's interim collection service will be separated into brown clear and green glass at the kerbside and the will be transported to Auckland for recycling. Glass is infinitely recyclable and, when colour separated, achieves am almost 100 percent recycling rate.

Any residents who have not received a crate by the end of this month are encouraged to check with their neighbours before contacting the council. All crates have the property address they are allocated to on the side. Extra crated can be ordered from council for $26 per annum after October 1.

Council has received a few reports of full collection crates already being put on the kerbside for collection.

'It's fantastic the people are so keen to use the new service, but they need to wait until October to put their crates out. And remember, the crate is for glass bottles and jars only. All the information is in the brochure, so I encourage everyone to read it,” says Steve.

For more information about the new glass service visit www.tauranga.govt.nz/glass or phone 07 577 7000.