Tairua and Pāuanui rubbish and recycling collections

Published on 08 August 2023

A lot of planning has gone into setting the routes for our rubbish and recycling collection service once Waste Management takes over the contract from 1 September.  

In the new schedule Tairua’s collection is Thursday and for Pāuanui it is Friday. 

Unfortunately, even with the best will in the world, the schedule cannot provide for everyone’s top preference. 

Scheduling personnel and the vehicles they operate is a complicated business.

We had to consider the numbers of kerbside-serviced properties in each ward, alongside the ability of our contractor to reach different areas on different days.

The collection routes were modelled to arrive at the most cost-effective option to remain within the contract price.

Moving Pāuanui to earlier in the week would raise annual costs significantly. 

From early September, Refuse and Recycling Transfer Stations at both Tairua and Pāuanui will be open from 8:30am-4:30pm (until 5:30pm during daylight savings). For Pāuanui, this is a 136% increase in the service to 72 hours per week and is something the Pāuanui community in particular has requested for some time. Most coastal villages in the Coromandel do not have their own transfer station.

Standard 60-litre rubbish bags are $5 to drop at the transfer stations. We will continue to accept our blue Council rubbish bags for free until stocks run out. There is no charge to dispose of recyclables at our transfer stations. 

Over our summer peak period of 26 December 2023 to 11 February 2024, kerbside collections on the Eastern Seaboard will increase – go to tcdc.govt.nz/bindays

We will review how the service is operating in 12 months’ time and after SH25a becomes operational, to see if things can be changed around, and without incurring additional costs to ratepayers.