City-wide kerbside food and green waste service on the horizon

Published on 04 July 2024

Palmerston North's Waste Management and Minimisation Plan has been adopted, setting a clear path for reducing waste over the next 6 years.

Sustainability Committee Chair, Councillor Brent Barrett, highlighted the value of community voice in shaping this plan.

"We received a lot of feedback from residents, and we’re grateful for everyone who attended our drop-in sessions and shared their ideas. Many people said green waste was actually a resource and requested that we include a collection service along with our already proposed kerbside food scraps collection. Prompted by that feedback, Council voted to include green resource collection in our planning. This was the most significant change resulting from our consultation.”

In response, Council staff will investigate and provide cost estimates, aiming to introduce a city-wide kerbside food scrap and green waste collection service in 2028. The introduction of a food scrap collection service is a government requirement and this must be in place by 2030.

Deputy Chair, Councillor Kaydee Zabelin says more than half our city’s waste is valuable food scraps and garden vegetation.

"By implementing a service like this, we’d be able to turn this into compost and massively reduce the amount of waste going to landfill."

The plan also focuses on ongoing efforts to promote waste reduction education. This will include more open days and tours at the Awapuni Recycling Centre, with some planned for the October school holidays.

Councillor Zabelin says the recent tour day during the consultation period was incredibly popular.

“We’re looking forward to making this a regular opportunity to educate our community. We understand the importance of involving the young ones and encouraging them to think about recycling from an early age, so this initiative will be great."

Councillor Barrett says the plan also includes a complete review of our kerbside collection services.

"We need to optimise service delivery. We’ll explore smarter ways to get the job done, which is really exciting."

The full plan will be available on our website later in July.