Published: 21 Dec 2018

The bin muster is coming South to Timaru for the first time early next year as the project moves onto the task of tagging all the city’s bins.

Residents in the Redruth area, and in a zone from Grasmere Street to Luxmoore Road will shortly receive notification that they need to put out all their bins on their usual collection day for three weeks in the week beginning 7 January.

More than 11,000 bins have been tagged so far throughout the northern collection zone. Any that have missed being tagged will be followed up on later in the project.

Ruth Clarke, Waste Minimisation Manager for Timaru District Council says that it’s important that people identify their own bins, and put all the bins they have out, even the one that’s not being collected that week.  Put the ones you want collected at the kerbside, but other bins can be put at the rear of the footpath.

“Our tagging team will be working independently from the person emptying the bins, so it’s important that the bins are left out all day. Ensuring that we can tag as many bins as possible on the nominated days ensures we can get the project done quickly and efficiently,” said Ruth.

“If you have an extra bin that you may have acquired during a move or at some other time, it’s also a good opportunity to put that out. We will check the number of bins allocated to the property and we can either remove any extras for free or offer people the opportunity to pay for any extra bins they may have.

“I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all the residents in our rural areas, Temuka, Geraldine and Pleasant Point for helping us get to the point we’ve reached.

“We’re the first non-metropolitan council in New Zealand to undertake a project this size, and there’s been some learning on the job, but thanks to the help of residents the project is now making great progress.”

The RFID tags being attached to the bins are about the same size as a plastic bottle cap and will enable our trucks to check in real time whether a bin is at the correct property before emptying it.

Once the system goes live in the collection area later next year, if there’s no tag, or the bin is in the incorrect location it will not be emptied and marked for return to its rightful owner or removal at a later date.

More information on the project, including maps of the roll out areas, can be found at www.timaru.govt.nz/binmuster

Last updated: 24 Feb 2021