At a Dunedin City Council infrastructure services committee meeting, the council shelved a staff recommendation to start looking at a proposed wheelie bin service, saying more public consultation was needed.
Councillors also questioned whether targets set to reduce waste were too ambitious.
The report had proposed a service with two wheelie bins, a weekly pick-up for household rubbish, and fortnightly pick-up for recycled material.
But the committee voted to reconvene the resource recovery working party, which would review the kerbside recycling and refuse services, and whether the aims of the waste strategy were appropriate.
The working party would also look at international technologies in reducing the waste stream and conduct public forums on waste management strategies.
Council staff had wanted to move to wheelie bins, as the blue recycling bins were not big enough and could not take a variety of recycled items.
The target under the waste strategy was 150kg of recycled material per household a year, but was reaching only 119kg a year.
It also sought a general waste level of 720kg per person per year (average now 800kg).
Cr Fliss Butcher said the waste and recycling targets should be looked at again,and suggested the targets set were too ambitious.
She said consultation had taken place only with waste management companies, and the public should be more involved.
Council city environment manager Tony Avery said the council had to go out to the community with something, and he admitted the waste targets were fairly ambitious.
Cr Paul Hudson said the topography of Dunedin would have a huge impact on any scheme, and wondered if older people could handle a heavy wheelie bin.
Cr Syd Brown said Dunedin was in an unique situation where private operators were picking up all the money in waste disposal as people paid to get their own wheelie bins so they did not have to meet the strategy.
The council was being left with the high-cost end of rubbish disposal.
Council staff had estimated about half of Dunedin's properties had private wheelie bins.
