Bins are once again causing a stink in Tauranga, with residents complaining about a build-up of maggot-infested rubbish and ever-growing collections of wine and beer bottles.

Some of the city's ratepayers are now demanding refunds from Tauranga City Council, who stand accused of operating a 'monopoly” with 'draconian rules”.

Tauranga City Council and Western Bay of Plenty District Council reduced rubbish services earlier this month, citing Covid-related staff shortages as the main reason. Neither glass crates nor food scrap bins are being collected until further notice.

Te Puke resident Shelley Connon says her food scraps have not been collected for three weeks. Despite regular cleaning and hosing, she says bins have quickly become infested with maggots, cockroaches and ants.

'I keep meat waste in the freezer until the last minute,” says Connon, 'but with them not collecting it for so long – and it's either been stinking hot or raining – it's not surprising that the bins are attracting insects and vermin.”

Connon, who rents the house from her father who is a ratepayer, objects to having to pay for a service that is not being delivered.

'Why should I pay for expensive fuel and fees to take stuff to the dump when it's supposed to be covered in the rates that my father pays?”

Connon also says her red recycling bin is not big enough for food and glass, and claims the community is becoming increasingly exasperated. 'If you ask for a bigger bin you are charged more,” she says.

'It's one of so many tough things people are dealing with in life at the moment with Covid, but this should be easily fixed and ratepayers should be given a refund.”

Maungatapu resident Philip Ewens agrees.

'They should offer ratepayers a refund for the lack of service,” he says. 'They can say it's Omicron that's buggered up their plans, but then why are we still paying for it?”

Ewens is 'disgusted” to see rubbish, including plastic bags and cardboard, blowing down the street while he was walking his dog this week.

'There was so much that it was blocking the drains,” he says.

Ewens complained via Tauranga City Council's contact centre and says the rubbish was cleaned up on Wednesday morning.

'The whole system is a rip off,” says Ewens. 'The extra bin for food scraps - even when they are collecting it - is a pain in the backside.

'There's often spilled rubbish. I've seen broken glass on the ground, which is a hazard. Then there's ...those who come around and look in your bin to check compliance with their system, tape up the bin and leave you a note. It's Draconian.”

Golden Sands resident Hayden Goldsack is composting food scraps, but says it's 'laziness” from council not to adapt to the challenges of staff shortages like other businesses have. Hayden runs a lawn mowing business with 70 staff.

'You can implement measures like everyone else has, like extra sanitising and safety and juggling staff rosters, and still continue a good service,” he says.

Goldsack says he has been taking his own glass to the recycling station.

'We have been homeschooling the kids, so our empty bottles have been mounting up.”

Pāpāmoa resident Stanley Burlison understands that councils are battling staff shortages, and that complaints about rubbish collection might seem like a 'first-world problem”, but his point is about the charges.

”I can drive the glass to the dump, and will do so if the council gives me a rebate for me doing something I am paying them to do,” says Burlison.

'The council should be managed like any other business. If you cannot provide a service, customers need to be charged accordingly.

'Council made a conscious decision to put almost all other waste collection companies out of business so that it could manage this service themselves. Now they have the monopoly, they need to deliver.”

Tauranga City Council sustainability and waste manager Sam Fellows says there are no plans in place to refund ratepayers.

'We still pay our drivers while they are off sick or isolating,” says Fellows. 'Kerbside collections are a targeted rate that encompasses the full service provided, including the rubbish and recycling bins.

'There is no set rate for only glass and food scraps, and it is not charged weekly.”

He acknowledged not everyone is happy, but others in the community have been supportive, he says.

'We have received some negative comments on social media regarding the reduced level of service, while others in the community have voiced their support for the wellbeing of our contractors during this challenging time.”

Fellows points out that, in the meantime, people can put their food scraps in their red bin which is still collected fortnightly.

He recommends people to store glass then 'drip feed it into the glass collections once full service resumes, take it to the transfer station or, as a last resort, put it in the red waste bin.”

Western Bay of Plenty District Council deputy CEO and group manager infrastructure services, Gary Allis.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council deputy CEO and group manager infrastructure services, Gary Allis, says there is no plan to refund Western Bay ratepayers either.

'We appreciate the reduction in service is an inconvenience, but there are no plans to reimburse for loss of service,” says Allis.

'The cost to the ratepayer in doing so would by far outweigh the benefit of any refund. When glass collections resume, excess can be fed back into the glass crates, providing crates are not overfull.

'This inconvenience to our service will hopefully be short term and will have no real impact on the overall costs associated with our eight-year contract.”

He says Western Bay of Plenty District Council has not received any reports of rubbish piling up since the reduced kerbside collection service was implemented, but recycling centre staff have seen an increase in people bringing in glass and other recyclables.

Tauranga City Council began a rates-funded kerbside collection service in July 2021, which aims to halve the amount of household waste that Tauranga residents send to landfill by 2028.

The new service included a weekly food scraps collection, which aims to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfill when it could be composted.

Currently, 33 per cent of Tauranga's household waste sent to landfill is food scraps, says Fellows.

'When food ends up in landfill, it rots without oxygen and releases methane – a gas that's harmful to our environment and contributes to climate change.

'By using the food scraps bin for your leftover food, fruit and vegetables, meat, fish and bones, egg and seafood shells, we can reduce the amount of food we send to landfill and in turn reduce the cost to our environment.”

However, from March 7, council has not collected food scraps or glass, citing 'driver shortages due to the impacts of the Omicron outbreak in our community”.

-Stuff/Annemarie Quill.