Dunedin households have taken advantage of a free bin swap to suit their needs.
A Dunedin City Council spokesman said it had received 878 requests since February 1 to swap bin sizes.
The swap applies to red-lidded and green-lidded bins brought in by the council last July when it upgraded kerbside collections.
Yellow-lidded bins for mixed recycling have been provided in two sizes — 240 litres and 80 litres — but they were introduced in 2011 and a charge for swapping them continues to apply.
The most popular change was for the green-lidded food and garden waste bin.
There had been a similar number of requests to swap the smaller 25-litre bin for the bigger 140-litre one as there were to downsize the bins.
The spokesman said a number of requests had been received for the yellow recycling bins with similar numbers for each option available.
He said the new kerbside collection was making a big difference in reducing the amount of food and garden waste going to the landfill.
"[It] is fantastic to see.
"In the first six months of the new service, 7377 tonnes of food and garden waste was diverted from landfill via the new bins, which shows the new system is working well and is a great result for Ōtepoti-Dunedin."
Monitoring of the new food and garden waste bins continued to show low levels of contamination at less than 5%.
Contamination rates for yellow-lidded bins were still high at 27% but there had been signs of improvement since the Christmas period.
"We ask everyone to please follow the instructions for each bin type to help us manage different waste and recycling streams appropriately."
People could request an additional large green-lidded bin for $88 a year, or an additional yellow-lidded bin for $48 a year, but bin sizes could not be swapped more than once a year, he said.
The free bin-size swaps would run until the end of April.
