Security guards to keep tabs on free student skips

A student dumps his rubbish in Clyde St in the free Skips for Students. PHOTO: PETER MCINTOSH
A student dumps his rubbish in Clyde St in the free Skips for Students. PHOTO: PETER MCINTOSH
Rising use of student skips has prompted the University of Otago to trial security monitoring.

Allied Security will supervise 11 skips in the student area over the next three Fridays between 7am and 4pm.

University of Otago property services director Dean Macaulay said the aims of the security included ensuring that only student waste and general waste, including furniture, went into the skips, and that waste did not pile up around the skips.

Last year, unsupervised skips in the student area were replaced many times each day and one skip needed to be replaced 13 times in one day.

Skips collected 375 tonnes of waste last year and were costing the university about $90,000 annually.

Mr Macaulay said concerns came to a head in November when large piles of rubbish were dumped around some skips before they were replaced.

"Anecdotal evidence of members of the public using the skips has also increased.’’

He said skip deployments were intensified at the start and end of the year as students moved in and out of flats.

The university had been providing the skips and use of them had grown steadily.

"While waste is the responsibility of the Dunedin City Council and most flats are privately owned by landlords, the university provides kerbside skips for larger items as part of its pastoral care for students because many do not have vehicles to transport those items.’’