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.

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