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Rodney has escaped council’s great rubbish bin controversy after the Rodney Local Board chose to fund the retention of all public rubbish bins, at least in the short term. Rodney area manager for parks and community facilities Geoff Pitman says the board allocated $60,000 to retain the 30 percent of rubbish bins that were proposed to be removed in Rodney. That decision will be reviewed in June. Pitman says retention of all existing public rubbish bins in the Rodney area will be dependent on the local board continuing to fund this.
The removal of thousands of rubbish bins from public spaces, as part of Auckland Council’s cost-cutting measures, has prompted some councillors to question whether some of the bins should be reinstated.
At a planning, environment and parks committee on March 14, councillors said they were getting heat from ratepayers about the bin removals and questioned staff on whether the savings from the project were truly worth it.
Hibiscus Coast’s Cr John Watson said he was getting a lot of complaints.
“This is the one issue that is disturbing people at the moment,” Watson said.
“It’s getting bigger – one of the undesirable outcomes is that in some places, rubbish has just been dropped or piled up or mixed in with other stuff and we have a hygiene issue.”
Council estimates it has around 10,000 bins and describes this project as “bin optimisation”. It plans to eventually remove just over 30 percent of the region’s public rubbish bins, which it says will save ratepayers at least $1.4 million annually.
Customer and community services director Dr Claudia Wyss, who asked unsuccessfully for the discussion at the meeting to be held “offline”, said there had been a notable change in community behaviour.
“There’s increasing littering and sometimes it is right next to the bin,” Wyss said.
“The teams have absolutely the best intent where they have removed the bins. They have tried to use data and information and community insights as much as possible – there will be some instances where a bin has accidentally been removed when it perhaps shouldn’t have been.”
She encouraged Aucklanders to raise concerns about litter through council’s online ‘Report a Problem’ tool.
Wyss said the factors that were taken into account when recommending that a bin be removed included how often it needed to be emptied, the proximity to another bin, whether or not a park was well used or whether it only had peak periods, such as during summer.
Cr Shane Henderson asked if council could return some bins.
“The community is really upset. If we want to put some back, can we easily do that? Are they sitting in a warehouse somewhere?” Henderson asked.
Wyss said putting bins back would come with a multi-million dollar price tag.
“That was the reason why it was put forward as part of the annual budget for cost saving. However, there are opportunities to put bins back,” Wyss said.
Chair Richard Hills said he was worried that staff were spending more time and money on this issue than the savings warranted.
