Waste Management backs switch to bins

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Wheelie bins for kerbside houshold rubbish could be organised for Gisborne in six months, Waste Management Hawkes Bay and Gisborne manager Brendan Walker says.

He told Gisborne District Council’s long-term plan hearing this week about waste and recycling in this district and some of the benefits of using wheelie bins.

Waste Management was at the coal face of Gisborne people’s waste and recycling.

Volume of waste was increasing and recycling was decreasing, he said.

With the reduced markets to sell recycling into, plastic was put to landfill increasingly.

“We are at the downstream end. The key is working at the front end, and you are.”

He applauded the many moves here to make Gisborne plastic bag-free.

“I was in Dagwoods and they offered me a bag. I said no but when I looked, she had a paper bag. They also had paper straws — so it is happening .”

In Australia and Europe, recycling was going to landfill — but here, all recycling collected by Waste Management was processed and on-sold to several different commodity markets.

Waste Management had six trucks on the road five days a week in Gisborne.

It was a manual collection and it was taking longer to collect the waste.

He supported wheelie bins, he told councillors.

They would be safer for staff because staff would not have to handle waste product.

The streets would be tidier because loose rubbish would not be able to get out.

The key success of wheelie bins was down to branding under the lid which explained all the rules.

“Everybody sees that when they lift the lid.

“At the moment, we communicate through flyers.”

Using wheelie bins for rubbish would also be quicker and not involve so many trucks, he said.

Referring to recycling, Mr Walker said work needed to go on at the front end, and local and central government should be pushing for better packaging laws.

Waste Management supported only class A landfills and the closest were in Waikato, Manawatu and Hawke’s Bay.

The class A landfill encapsulated all of the product including decomposition.

Leachate and greenhouse gasses were the two products of landfills.

Waste Management had a circular economy with waste — the gas was converted to electricity which powered some of their trucks.

“We only have three operational (none in Gisborne yet) but things are moving along quickly.”

There are class B landfills in Wairoa and Ruatoria.

“Waste Management would rather take the waste out of town than use a class B landfill,” Mr Walker said.