Waste Changes

Sent: Tuesday, 4 February 2025 3:39 pm
Subject: Official Information request - waste changes

I refer to your Official Information request of 23 January 2025 for all information or recommendations or discussions or other notes around the bins relation to how families will cope with the reduced collections, in particular any health and safety or hygiene issues with disposing of nappies or sanitary waste for families.

Your request for ‘all information or recommendations or discussions or other notes etc.’ covers a significant amount of information over a number of years. To access and collate this information would take a substantial amount of staff time. Your request in its entirety is therefore declined under section 17 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act ‘that the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research’. However, we can provide the attached documents which informed the decision to implement the Organic Waste Collection (FOGO) service:

• Composition of Rotorua Lakes Council Kerbside Rubbish and Mixed Recycling Collections June 2021 (PDF, 2MB)
• Rotorua Waste Assessment 2021 (PDF, 2MB)
• Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2022-28 (PDF, 43MB)

There is also further information on Council’s website regarding reports received by elected members at council/committee meetings and the consultation process – see the below links:

• ‘Rotorua Lakes Council’s Waste Assessment 2021’ report to Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee April 2021 - Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee - 15/04/2021 - Rotorua Lakes Council
• ‘Waste Management & Minimisation Plan (WMMP) 2022-28’ report to Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee December 2021 - Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee - 02/12/2021 - Rotorua Lakes Council
• ‘Waste Management & Minimisation Plan (WMMP) 2022-28’ report to Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee April 2022 - Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee - 14/04/2022 - Rotorua Lakes Council
• ‘Organic Waste Collection – Commence Consultation’ report to Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee April 2022 - Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee - 14/04/2022 - Rotorua Lakes Council
• 2022 Consultation process - Te Kohinga Pararopi - Organic Waste Collection | Participate | Whakapuakina mai
• ‘Hearings on Kerbside Organic Waste Collection in Rotorua’ report to Council February 2023 - Council meeting - 22/02/2023 - Rotorua Lakes Council
• ‘Organic waste collection - consultation outcome’ report to Infrastructure & Environment Committee May 2023 - Infrastructure and Environment Committee -10/05/2023 - Rotorua Lakes Council

Regarding nappies or sanitary waste specifically:

The kerbside services are designed to achieve effective and efficient collection of waste and working towards meeting Council’s visions and goals of:

• Protecting the environment
• Diverting waste from landfills
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Many people across the district have differing needs in terms of the waste they need to dispose of. Some households have more waste than others, many of our elders who live alone produce very little waste. Some households have gardens and compost, many newer homes don’t have the space to compost. It would be inefficient to try and meet all of these unique situations.

The number of households who have children in nappies has not changed significantly over time. We know from the waste assessments we have done that:

• 7% of Rotorua households have children under the age of 4; and
• all sanitary waste, including nappies, accounts for between 7% and 9% by weight year on year of the kerbside waste stream.

The existing service is generic in its design to keep the complexity and costs of the operation at a level that is usable across the majority of households and affordable for the rate payer.

The design of the new FOGO service was planned with consideration of the existing weekly capacity, ensuring that the introduction of the new organics bin maintained consistent bin capacities in line with the current service levels.

Whilst the number of households and the volume of nappy waste remain relatively consistent across time, for most households with children in nappies it is transitional period that passes as the family matures. This unique requirement is not a large enough need to justify pivoting the entire refuse collection system back to weekly refuse collections, where alternative solutions are available.

There is an allowance for a user pays element within the system, meaning that as household needs change, they can increase the bin capacity by paying for additional bins as they need them.

There is no option, however, to increase frequency of bin collection as this would require a specialised collection service resulting in diverting a truck from assigned routes and/or an entirely different type of truck, with individual houses potentially scattered across different locations that do not follow the same collection schedule.