The council has, since last year, been reviewing its kerbside collection services as part of its Waste Futures Project.
Options ranged from continuing with the status quo to a host of potential changes, including alternatives to user-pays black rubbish bags and the introduction of a green waste collection service.
Council waste and environmental solutions group manager Chris Henderson said work on a detailed business case should be complete by the middle of the year.
The best options, together with estimated costs, would then be released for public consultation, before the council settled on changes.
However, the size of the possible change meant it would be years before any new service was introduced, he said.
Public consultation was due later this year, but funding then needed to be allocated at next year's long-term plan hearing, he said.
A contractor would also have to be confirmed and time allowed for them to prepare to provide any new services.
Also, depending on the options selected, new facilities might have to be built, he said.
"The earliest we could look to have a new service on the ground would be 2022.
"I would love to get something done sooner; I just don't think it would actually be physically possible."
Mr Henderson said "pretty much everything" remained on the table as options for now, but complaints about black plastic rubbish bags, and calls for a new organics service, were creating "public pressure" for change.
Both options were being considered, but questions still to be answered included what exactly a new service would be like, he said.
A new organics service could involve kerbside collection for every home in the city, or drop-off points for people to take their garden waste, he said.
Rubbish bags could be replaced by a bin system, but alternatives would be needed in the central city to avoid clutter, and in some steep hill suburbs, he said.
"That's all the stuff that's going into a detailed business case analysis to try and come up with some good answers to put out for consultation."
His comments came after reports to councillors last year noted an audit of the Green Island landfill in 2012 had found 26% of all waste was organic.
A subsequent audit of 100 council rubbish bags last year found organic waste comprised 43% of the contents.
The council last year had resolved to explore ways of increasing resource recovery and waste minimisation.
A subsequent Tonkin and Taylor report recommended options to explore in more detail, ranging from promoting greater composting at home, or drop-off points for organic waste, garden waste or both, to a full city-wide kerbside collection service.
The cost of any new service could range from just $10,000 a year to more than $9 million a year, although the "highly indicative" figures contained a margin of error of +/- 50%, council staff said.
Work on the Waste Futures Project since then had settled on a move towards a "circular economy" as the optimal approach to waste management.
The aim was for the council to have more influence over waste streams and reducing volumes heading to landfill.
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Comments
Shame on you DCC. This only highlights your lack of respect for the environment. It's really not that difficult you just need less talking, meetings, reports, consultations and more action.
I've been complaining about plastic bags for awhile but I'm going to stop now because it has just dawned on me how good they are for our native birds! You see I live in Careys Bay and the place is overrun with rats, stoats, possums and hedgehogs all which we are told can not coexist with our native birds and distroy our trees. However I can report that we are blessed with many wonderful natives and all the trees still have their leaves. Clearly all the vermin and pests are not interested in natives, instead they are happy to gorge themselves in our composts heaps, feast themselves on the flies and maggots around our smelly bins as we try and make the expensive bag last one more week. Or just tear them open when the they can to munch on our leftovers. We don't need to ban them. No! What we need is to spread our rubbish more. Forget 1080 we need to cover the forests and countryside with full DCC plastic rubbish bags. Solves the problem of what the DCC will do when Green Island landfill is forced to close and will save millions in trying to make NZ pest free. Instead we can all coexist in our own self absorbed greed.