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Auckland Council’s rollout of its kerbside food scrap collection service is now complete – the first collections took place on the Hibiscus Coast on October 30.
Since the start of the rollout, in April, Council says 9 million kilograms of household food scraps have been diverted from landfill, Auckland-wide. For the Rodney area, which includes the Hibiscus Coast, Riverhead, Huapai, Kumeu and Warkworth, the estimated weekly weight of food scraps collected has been around 20,000kg per week.
The total collected for Rodney, October 30-November 26, was around 85,000kg.
Some areas have seen reductions in the weight of total refuse in kerbside rubbish bins by up to 20 percent.
The service is paid for by a targeted rate on all Auckland households.
The food scraps are processed at New Zealand’s only anaerobic digestion facility run by Ecogas in Reporoa, which converts the the into renewable energy and liquid fertiliser.
The material is transported to the facility from Auckland in trucks that have delivered gravel to Auckland from Taupo. Normally these would return empty, but they now carry the scraps so no extra vehicles are added to the roads.
Council says that the participation rate of Auckland households is around 45-50 percent so far.
Council is now working through a list of residents yet to receive their bins. Multi-unit developments, such as apartments and retirement villages will be assessed as to whether a food scraps collection service can be delivered either as normal or as a non-standard service. In these cases, property managers or body corporates can register with Council for an assessment to design a food scraps service that works for the residents and the property.
The food scraps collections service is part of a four-tiered approach to reduce food waste going to landfill that includes supporting redistribution of food through food rescue initiatives and encouraging home and community composting.
