A weekly food and green waste collection service has been announced for Rotorua in an effort to halve kerbside waste sent to landfill.

Rubbish (red bin) collections will reduce to fortnightly once the new service begins on July 1, 2026, adding just under $25 a year to rates bills.

Rotorua Lakes Council’s waste collection partner Smart Environmental has signed a nine-year contract to provide the service, the council said in a statement today.

This follows an Infrastructure and Environment Committee decision, made in confidence last year because of commercial sensitivities, awarding the contract to Smart Environmental.

The food and green waste collection would be introduced in urban and some lakes areas.

The contract signing followed community consultation in May and June 2022, which highlighted a preference for a weekly food and green organics collection, combined with a fortnightly general rubbish collection, the council said.

Infrastructure and Environment general manager Stavros Michael said the council was “committed to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill to protect the environment and mitigate emerging financial risks to ratepayers arising from regulatory changes”.

“The cost of sending household waste to landfill has continued to increase because of rising central government levies and changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“These taxes comprise about 60% of landfill costs,” Michael said.

He said waste audits in Rotorua indicated food and garden organics make up about 55% of household waste.

“With the introduction of organic waste collection, we expect to see the amount of landfilled kerbside waste halved and an 80% reduction in our kerbside waste carbon footprint.”

The new service will provide an 80-litre bin to all households, and businesses in the urban and primarily residential areas of the district.

The service area will exclude all rural areas south of Waipā and rural agricultural areas north of Lake Rotorua, because the scarce collection points and long travel distances made it not economically or environmentally viable.

The organic waste bin will be collected weekly and used for food scraps and green waste such as grass clippings and leaves. Red rubbish bin collections would move from weekly to fortnightly when the new service starts.

The food and green waste collected in the district will be taken to Ecogas in Reporoa where it will be processed using anaerobic digestion.

The facility generates electricity, heat, biogas and fertiliser as a by-product, closing the food and energy loop by returning nutrients back into soils around Reporoa.

Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell said an organic waste collection was about more than providing another service to the community.

“It will significantly reduce the cost of sending waste to landfill by reducing the amount landfilled and the transport costs associated with that,” Tapsell said.

Rotorua Lakes Council said it was committed to reducing the amount of waste sent to the landfill.

“It will result in better outcomes for the environment through the reduction of some of our most harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

“This service is something people in our district have been asking for and we also listened to community concerns regarding affordability and agreed to delay implementation until 2026.”

The council said the gross annual operating costs of the new service of $2.45 million would be offset by reduced landfill costs of about $1.6m. This was based on 6000 tonnes of waste being diverted from the landfill and resulting in a net additional increase to the targeted rate of $24.71 per annum, the council said.

The council said the more waste diverted from the landfill, the lower the cost of the service.

The Ministry for the Environment has also provided $1.38m, through its Waste Minimisation Fund, to go towards buying the required bins.

The purpose of the Waste Minimisation Fund is to boost New Zealand’s performance in waste minimisation. The fund invests in infrastructure, services, and educational activity throughout New Zealand. The fund is primarily enabled through the waste disposal levy.

- Rotorua Daily Post