Household food waste collection service a step closer
North Shore City Council has given the green light to the next stage of the city's latest waste reducing
initiative, a plan to collect and compost household food waste.
Works and environment committee chairperson, Joel Cayford, says the decision keeps North Shore City at the
cutting edge in pioneering environmentally-friendly waste disposal methods in New Zealand.
"Not only do we owe it to North Shore residents to reduce the cost of waste disposal, but we also owe it to
neighbouring communities such as Rodney District, which currently landfills rubbish on our behalf."
Councillor Cayford says a successful trial in Bayswater recently showed householders were keen to find better ways to
dispose of food waste, which encouraged the council to consider introducing the service city-wide from as early as July
2005.
"I applaud the people of Bayswater who enthusiastically supported the trial. Thanks to them we have the
confidence to proceed with a method that, in the longer term, will save the considerable environmental costs of dumping
everything in a landfill.
"We know that about half of all household rubbish can be composted, and by reusing organic material this way
will significantly reduce the volume of rubbish we dump," says Joel Cayford.
North Shore City's waste minimisation team leader, Michelle Kaczor, says it is a fantastic result for the city,
but a considerable amount of work will need to be done to get the food waste collection and composting service up and
running city-wide.
"We now have to work through the fairest way of funding the kitchen waste collection service as well as
investigating the most efficient way of processing the compost," she says.
The food waste collection and composting proposal will be part of the council's Long Term Community Consultation
Plan (LTCCP) and will be available for public comment in early 2004.