Questions were raised at this week's Maniototo Community Board meeting as to how prepared Ranfurly residents were for the move to fortnightly rubbish collections, due to start on July 1.
Board member Robert Hazlett said he had been approached by people concerned about how they would cope with reduced collections, especially households with several children.
''Are they going to have to take it [excess rubbish] to the transfer station? ... How will that cope?''
He said he envisaged ''piles of stuff down there [at the transfer station] and nobody to move it'' as Central Otago WasteBusters, which has the collection contract, only had small trucks.
He said there did not seem to be a lot of awareness within the community about the change.
Despite the council advertising regularly in a community paper, that might not be reaching everyone, board members said.
The aim of reduced collections was to encourage greater recycling and therefore divert more waste from the landfill, as well as reducing costs.
There are kerbside recycling collections in Alexandra, Cromwell and Clyde and when questioned about the possibility of having it in Ranfurly, Central Otago District Council chief executive Phil Melhopt said it was ''an option that could be implemented''.
Council infrastructure services manager Jon Kingsford said council had been ''pushing WasteBusters to gear up'' for the increased demand for recycling services the new collection scheme was expected to bring.
He said they did not keep up with demand over the Christmas holiday period, though there could have been a greater-than-expected volume, and that was ''a really good warning bell''.
''We are aware that they need to adapt their processes.''
Mr Melhopt said the council funded WasteBusters and he was confident it would ''have enough influence to bring about operational improvement if needed''.
Mayor Tony Lepper said the council made a ''massive mistake'' by introducing the 240-litre wheelie bins because people started throwing everything into them.
''We looked at ways to rectify that ... we could have jumped back to bags and it would have reduced volume just like that.''
The move to fortnightly collections was part of the council's Waste Minimisation and Management Plan, adopted in 2012.
Of the 207 written submissions made on the draft plan, 187 discussed the proposal to reduce collecting rubbish from 240-litre wheelie bins from weekly to fortnightly with a small majority supporting the move.
At the meeting, board members discussed the draft annual plan and heard there would be an estimated 1.8% rates rise in the ward, which had been trimmed back from the 6.8% that was in the council's long-term plan.
As in other wards, the reduction had come about by pushing out external borrowing and therefore not incurring interest and repayments.
