Yellow rubbish bags ripped open by animals will be a thing of the past when Hauraki District Council moves to landfill bins in September 2023.

"That's just one of the positive outcomes from our recent community engagement on our Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) - No Time to Waste | Tiakina a Papa! Mimiti te Para," says Hauraki District mayor Toby Adams.

'We've now signed off our plan which outlines our way forward for reducing waste. Our aim is to reduce our landfill waste by 41 per cent in the next six years.”

A big portion of that will be food waste, with a weekly kerbside collection being introduced from September 2023.

An audit of Council's kerbside bags last year showed that nearly half of landfill collected was food waste.

There'll be no change to the clean recycling and glass crate fortnightly collection.

"What's really exciting is since we started our No Time to Waste or Tiakina a Papa! Mimiti te Para! consultation, our kerbside collection recycling audits have shown contamination has dropped from 55 per cent in September 2021 to six per cent in January 2022 in audited bins.

"That's an astonishing 49 per cent decrease in contaminated recycling. That's a fantastic result and a real credit to our communities.

"We had a massive community response to our plan, and it's really shown how much our people care about our environment. Shining a light on the topic really improves recycling behaviour, and we want that to continue."

A total of 3420 recycling bins were audited in the district from November 1, 2021, – January 31, 2022.

"Adopting the Waste Management and Minimisation Plan now, gives us a good lead in time to get everything in place by the time a new kerbside collection contract comes into place in September 2023," says Toby.

Other decisions included in the WMMP include:

• Increasing education on waste reduction, recycling, and contamination,
• Enforcing a three strike rule on contamination of recycling,
• Exploring options for an organic waste processing facility in the District,
• Going ahead with a 12 month trial of public recycling bins in the district,
• Investigating a recycling centre or drop off point on the Hauraki Plains in 2022/23,
• Working with Iwi to incorporate local Mātauranga Māori in education campaigns.

A summary of decisions is available at https://weneedtotalk.hauraki-dc.govt.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/WMMP-Summary-Decisions.pdf