christchurch-bin-schedule

Christchurch Bin Schedule

Goal

Query live Christchurch City Council household kerbside collection schedules through a deterministic CLI with human-readable and JSON output.

Christchurch uses a three-bin system under the national standardisation:

• Red bin — Rubbish (fortnightly)
• Yellow bin — Recycling (fortnightly)
• Green bin — Organics (weekly, where available)

All three bin types are typically collected on the same day of the week, though they rotate on different fortnightly schedules.

Use this when

• A user asks when Christchurch bins go out
• A user wants the next rubbish, recycling, or organics collection date for a Christchurch address
• A workflow needs machine-readable CCC collection schedule data

Do not use this for

• Councils outside Christchurch City / Banks Peninsula (try Auckland, Wellington, or other council skills)
• Inner-city bag collections (not supported by this endpoint)
• Banks Peninsula community collection points (not individual property-level)
• Commercial or private collection schedules
• Finding a RatingUnitID without an address — the user must provide either an address or a known RatingUnitID

Preferred workflow

1. Accept an address string or a known RatingUnitID from the user
2. If an address is given, resolve it to a RatingUnitID via the CCC address suggest API
3. Fetch the collection schedule from the CCC getProperty endpoint
4. Filter to current/future out_of_date=False collections
5. Present the regular schedule (day of week) and upcoming collection dates
6. Use --json for agent chaining, comparisons, alerts, or structured reports

CLI

Run with:

python3 skills/christchurch-bin-schedule/scripts/cli.py "53 Hereford Street"
python3 skills/christchurch-bin-schedule/scripts/cli.py --rating-unit-id 86089
python3 skills/christchurch-bin-schedule/scripts/cli.py "53 Hereford Street" --json

Arguments

• address — street address to search, e.g. "53 Hereford Street"
• --rating-unit-id — CCC RatingUnitID (numeric), skips address lookup
• --json — emit JSON

Finding your RatingUnitID

1. Visit https://ccc.govt.nz/services/rubbish-and-recycling/collections/
2. Search for your address
3. The RatingUnitID can be found by inspecting the network request to /getProperty?ID=
4. Alternatively, use this skill with your address and it will resolve the ID automatically

Resources

• CLI entrypoint: scripts/cli.py
• API and stability notes: references/api-notes.md

Notes

• No API key, username, password, or cookie is required
• Christchurch uses the national-standard three-bin system (red/yellow/green)
• The getProperty endpoint is protected by Incapsula bot detection — it works reliably from residential NZ IPs but may block datacenter/VPN IPs with 403
• The address suggest endpoint (opendata.ccc.govt.nz) has no bot protection and works universally
• Dates are current Council snapshots, not historical records
• Public holidays may shift collection dates — the CLI reflects the current Council data
• Treat dates as live current snapshots, not guaranteed future schedules
• Organic collections are marked as Week A / Week B — the next_planned_date reflects the actual collection date