City council staff in Dunedin have been inundated with piles and piles of . . . rubbish surveys.
Staff spoken to by the Otago Daily Times said they were amazed by the response, having received more than 6000 completed surveys after the weekend.
The first batch of surveys, which canvassed public opinion on a host of rubbish collection and recycling options for the city, were sent out early last week.
A similar survey in 2002 received only about 800 replies in a month, council solid waste manager Ian Featherston said.
The response had "certainly raised a few eyebrows".
"I expected a reasonable turnout, but we haven't even finished delivering them yet," he said.
He had had a "very cursory" look at the results to get a feel for the tone of public opinion, before they were shipped to Christchurch-based company The Field Connection for analysis.
There appeared to be a reasonable level of support for wheelie bins to replace the blue bins currently in use and a 50-50 split in support for a green waste service.
Focus groups were being held this week to develop questions for a telephone survey of 300 people, which would give the council another dimension of feedback and add to the results from the mail-out survey.
The telephone survey would gather the views of people who did not necessarily feel strongly either way about the issue.
Mail-out surveys were generally returned by people who did.
Because of the strong response to the survey, results were not expected until late November and a report would go to the council early next year, Mr Featherston said.
Council communications co-ordinator Rodney Bryant said the public response was the best he had seen in 19 years working for the city.
Any changes to the system are likely to be two years away.
