Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

Tauranga residents have the choice of several rubbish providers to pick their rubbish up from the kerbside. But there's a few problems the city might want to look at.

Not all of the materials in your recycle bin gets recycled, primarily due to how it's collected and separated.

We also don't collect enough organic waste – food and garden – at our transfer stations. It means we import organic waste from Waikato to turn it into organic fertiliser for local farms and orchards.

But roughly one-third of the city's waste going to landfill is organic. Can we look to solve two issues here?

Tauranga City Council will next week discuss whether to adopt a draft Waste Minimisation Plan for public feedback. The plan would ask whether it's worth looking into other options in more detail during the next year or two.

The earliest council could start a city-wide service would be 2019. There are many checkpoints with the community between now and then. The draft waste plan is the first.

If the next council continues down this path, it's in council's best interests to have strong competition between supplier contractors. There could be different options for customers and it doesn't have to be one-size-fits-all.

The key question is would a council-run waste collection service provide better economies of scale to divert more waste from going to landfill, especially as the city gets bigger?

The plan won't answer this question, but it will allow us to access central government money to at least investigate it.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 0276989548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice.

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