Bins are going walkabouts in North D. Turf wars have broken out over bins following the new Dunedin City Council (DCC) bins being thrown into the rotation. What goes around comes around, and it seems that as bins disappear from back porches, it’s triggered a domino-effect of bin-pinching.
Second-year student Kate told Critic that her flat on Dundas street has experienced "tremendous issues" with bin theft, resulting in a back deck filled with smelly bin liners. Another North D resident, second-year Lucilla, told of a situation where she had found her flat devoid of every bin but the yellow lidded one.
A reconnaissance mission for their beloved bin led to Lucilla searching the street “every night at 10pm” – but with no luck. A "list of suspects" lead her to nothing but dead ends, putting Lucilla very close to offering Castle 24 a "box on return" for their bin. She would've stolen another, “but there were no other bins around.” The flat’s red bin was eventually found on Dundas St.
Even the University isn’t safe, it seems, with UniFlats bins being stolen en masse, a claim confirmed by the University of Otago’s Director Campus and Collegiate Life Services James Lindsay. The problem has gotten so bad in the UniFlat community that staff have taken measures to protect their horde.
Lindsay told Critic they will send out a weekly email reminding students to put their bins out on the kerb and a follow-up email reminding them to bring the bins back in. And as you would passive aggressively take to fridge items with a Sharpie when your milk’s going suspiciously fast, they’ve also labelled each and every bin with names and addresses.
The bin wars appear to be a Studentville specific problem, with NEV-bound second-year student Bri boasting to Critic Te Ārohi that her bin has never been stolen. “The only time my bin has been tipped over is when I run it over with my car backing out of the driveway every week," she gloated.
Choosing to conceive of the problem in terms of cause and effect, second-year student Roisin said, “I think it is a domino effect where someone steals a bin, forcing another household to steal a bin and so on and so forth." Looking at you, Lucilla. Roisin told Critic that she prefers the new bin system over the bags due to the decrease in cost, while also suggesting it is "easier to get a bin stolen if you put more bins out."
As Roisin points out, a potential culprit for the proliferation of bin theft could be the boosted number of bins available to pinch since the new DCC bin system came into practice in July. As opposed to the earlier system where flats would have black DCC bin bags in combination with both plastic and glass recycling bins, students now have a DCC red bin and green bin. To this end, the average amount of bins in a student flat climbed from two to four in an instant – making them that much more stealable in the minds of passing frothers.
Given their phantom hand of local governance in the smell of tipped bins and stinky bare black bags wafting from North Dunedin, Critic Te Ārohi asked the DCC (Dunedin City Council) for comment on the matter. Sadly, we were not graced with an official response as the DCC are a “bit under the pump at present with the hospital campaign.” As if that’s anywhere near as important.
In the meantime, it seems students will need to get creative in bin-protective measures. Clearer labelling is one technique implemented by UniFlats to deter confusion when taking bins back in. On the same line of thought, Lucilla humorously suggested a "paint your own bin day" where the DCC "drops off little paint parcels" so everyone can "customise their own bin." Drawing a dick and balls on the face of your wheelie bin would likely deter any conniving thief. Lucilla ended with the message that "we just need to encourage people to love their bins." How touching.