The reintroduction of kerbside glass recycling in Tauranga is being deemed a 'great success”.
Tauranga City Council and the Ministry for the Environment stepped in at short notice to support kerbside glass collection in Tauranga after private kerbside glass collection services were withdrawn in March 2018.
'The reintroduction of this service and its operation since October 2018 has been a great success. It is on track to help divert from landfill 6000 tonnes of glass waste generated in Tauranga each year,” says Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage.
'Prior to the support being provided fewer people were recycling, as the alternative was visiting a transfer station and having to wait to recycle.”
The Ministry for the Environment's Waste Minimisation Fund contributed $256,500 to fund half of the 52,950 crates tagged with radio frequency identification readers needed for collections.
The service was reintroduced to every residential household in Tauranga in October 2018.
The kerbside collection service has had a much bigger uptake than expected, so the Tauranga City Council is putting on a sixth glass collection truck which is due to start in July.
On average 5500 households are serviced each day.
The council estimates almost twice as much glass is being collected compared to the previous collection service.
Glass contamination has been reduced by operators being able to sort the glass by colour at the roadside.
The recycling crates' new radio frequency identification technology tracks the bins to the individual property helping improve customer service.
High level data captured by the RFID tag identifies generalised recycling trends and patterns that can help in educating the community about how to recycle properly.
'We are committed towards supporting solutions to reduce waste. It's fantastic to have been able to fund this recycling initiative which has had a significant impact on reducing our landfill,” says Eugenie.
More information on the Ministry for the Environment's Waste Minimisation Fund:
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/more/funding/waste-minimisation-fund/about-waste-minimisation-fund
5 comments
money maker
Posted on 18-07-2019 08:25 | By hapukafin
This is a money maker for someone.Inrecent months we have made a casual survey of the number of bins out on collection days,on our street its been 25-40% of the homes had their bin out.We dont have a option not to pay for the bin.
no choice
Posted on 18-07-2019 09:01 | By foruandme
thats true we had no choice to buy in or out of these bins.
Now I have to pay for 2 recycling services!
Posted on 18-07-2019 09:29 | By jed
We already pay for green bins. Now we have to pay for yet another service we don't even use!
We still have a plastic problem!
Posted on 18-07-2019 10:27 | By BlueberryBee
Yet still Tga, western bay and some other councils in NZ only take plastics 1 and 2. 3 - 7 go into landfill. Company's could not give a toss and still use plastics 3-7. The Greens have had the perfect opportunity to address this issue yet have done NOTHING!. New bins Great!. What about the plastic problem!!
They're not fit for purpose.
Posted on 21-07-2019 10:57 | By TheCameltoeKid
The fact that these bins are only collected once every 2 weeks and given that they're so small means that they;re not fit for purpose. I'm sure that some intrepid person could take up this case under the Consumer Guarantees Act. I would fill this bin in a couple of days and I know of people who still use the re-cycling centre making the bins useless. So a lot of people are having to pay for a service they don't need or use. So once again we have a Minister spouting rubbish on how the scheme is a success.
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