Draft Waste Plan 2021

Submissions closed on 11 October 2021, 05:00 PM

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Whanganui District Council is looking at getting more involved with waste services so we can work towards becoming a ‘low waste district’ that sends as little as possible to landfill. Taking into account what you told us in the 2018 Household Waste Survey, we consulted the community on our Draft Waste Plan in late 2021. The updated document - Waste Plan 2021-2027 - will be added to our website in January 2022.

Read our Draft Waste Plan 2021(PDF, 6MB) 

Key proposals in our Draft Waste Plan

A rates-funded kerbside recycling collection service for urban households

This service is planned to start in 2023. Recycling would be collected weekly, with glass collected one week and other recyclables – paper, cardboard, plastics, cans and tins – the following week.

It would divert an extra 800 tonnes of recyclables from landfill per year.

A rates-funded kerbside food waste collection service for urban households

This service is planned to start in 2024. Households would be issued with a small, closed container that would be collected weekly. Even households that are already home composting could use this service as it would take all food waste, including cooked food, meat, dairy and fish.

It would help combat climate change by keeping food waste out of landfills where it produces greenhouse gases. We could divert 1,700 tonnes of food waste from landfill per year.

What about rural households?

The proposed kerbside recycling and food waste services are for urban households only as the cost of extending them to rural households would be prohibitive.

However, the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre would still be operating to collect recycling from rural households (as well as for items that cannot be collected kerbside).

The draft plan also proposes trialling recycling stations in two rural areas.

Keep private companies providing a kerbside rubbish collection

We’re proposing that households pay a private company to collect their rubbish as usual. Private companies can offer options like ‘pay as you throw’ technology where you only pay for the rubbish you throw out – this saves households money and encourages waste minimisation behaviour.

What else is in our Draft Waste Plan?

Waste bylaw

Industry experts have advised us that households with 240L rubbish bins tend to top up their bins with green (garden) waste and recyclables to fill up space. A waste bylaw could phase out 240L bins and regulate what can be put in rubbish bins. It would license waste operators and require them to collect waste data.

A bylaw could also require recycling at large events and monitoring of waste and recycling on construction projects.

Construction and demolition waste service

An estimated 25% of what goes to landfill is construction and demolition waste, so we would like to work with an organisation to set up a service to divert this waste stream from landfill.

Next step

The council's Waste Plan 2021-2027 will be added to our website in January 2022. Details around costs and service levels are required to be consulted on through our Long-Term Plan amendment process in April 2022. Our Waste Plan 2021-2027 will be subject to change depending on elected members' decisions during this process.