Rotorua Lakes Council’s waste collection partner Smart Environmental has signed a nine-year contract to provide collection services for food and green waste in the district. 

"This follows an Infrastructure and Environment Committee decision, made in confidential last year due to commercial sensitivities, awarding the contract to Smart Environmental with the service to start 1 July 2026," a council spokesperson said.

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

Council said the signing of the contract follows community consultation in May and June 2022, which highlighted a preference for a weekly Food Organics, Green Organics (FOGO) collection, combined with a fortnightly collection of rubbish (red bins).

Infrastructure and Environment General Manager Stavros Michael said Rotorua Lakes Council is 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 due to rising Central Government levies and changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme. These taxes comprise about 60 per cent of landfill costs," Michael said.

“Waste audits in our district indicate food and garden organics make up about 55 per cent of household waste. With the introduction of organic waste collection, we expect to see the amount of landfilled kerbside waste halved and an 80 per cent 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 Waipa, rural agricultural areas north of Lake Rotorua, due to too few collection points and long travel distances, which are not economically or environmentally viable.

The organic waste bin will be collected weekly and will be used for food scraps and green waste such as grass clippings and leaves. Rubbish (red bin) collections will move to fortnightly once the 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 is about much more than providing another service to our community.

“It will significantly reduce the cost of sending waste to landfill by reducing the amount landfilled and the transport costs associated with that. It will result in better outcomes for the environment through the reduction of some of our most harmful greenhouse gas emissions," Tapsell said.

“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 gross annual operating costs of the new service of $2.45m will be offset by reduced landfill costs of about $1.6m (based on 6000 tonnes of waste being diverted from the landfill), resulting in a net additional increase to the targeted rate of $24.71 per annum.

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

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

"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."