The University of Otago announced today that the 11 skips dotted about studentville on the 14th, 21st and 28th of February, will be supervised by Allied Security guards.
This supervision will be on a trial basis, with the aim of ensuring that only students are using these skips, and that students are only using it for general waste, not recycling.
The University has been approached for comment on if students will be required to provide their student ID in order to access the skips.
The University of Otago offers students free skip days 13 days a year between the hours of 7am and 4pm. Between these hours, skips are regularly replaced once full. According to a University spokesperson, the most a single skip was replaced in 2019 was 13 times in one day. This accumulated a cost to the University of $90,000 in 2019.
Public use of student skips have apparently been on the rise for a number of years. Property Services Director, Dean Macaulay, said the 2019 skip days collected 36 tonnes of waste in total. The total waste haul of these three upcoming supervised skip dates will be compared to 2019.
OUSA President Jack Manning said “Accessible waste management is a necessity for our students” and that although it “would be a shame if security proved necessary”, the public use of these skips is “to the detriment of students”, whose fees pay for this service.