WAIRARAPA councils need to get more creative about recycling, according to a former waste minimisation officer.
Peter Ruddock, Waste Minimisation Officer from November last year until late last month, says the councils need to see recycling as part of a bigger waste picture.
Wairarapa has been through three waste minimisation officers in
three years, and the position remains vacant with Masterton and Carterton district councils reconsidering the role.
South Wairarapa was not involved.
Mr Ruddock says one thing that frustrated him was the separation between recycling and other rubbish plans.
For instance people were once encouraged to get two green recycling bins, but the contractor was only required to pick up one to a household.
"What happens if your rubbish day is Friday and your bin is full by Wednesday, especially for families?" Mr Ruddock asks.
"Do you just put it in the rubbish?"
Mr Ruddock says people want to recycle now. "It's not 2002."
But "there's no point in telling them to recycle if you don't give them the mechanism for recycling," Mr Ruddock says.
Another example was the new $750,000 transfer station under construction, which Mr Ruddock says is fantastic, "but if you want to do your recycling, go to those old dilapidated sheds".
Mr Ruddock says he knows recycling is to be looked at next, but he felt it should have been looked at first.
Mr Ruddock said that when he began the job, he "thought it was going to be to improve things for recycling."
But recycling and rubbish are "two sides of the coin", Mr Ruddock said.
It's hard to make a difference "if you can't influence the other side".
If Masterton people recycled more waste, "they'd have to pay Peter Foreman more because he's got to process it."
"I couldn't actually get involved," Mr Ruddock said.
"That wasn't my job. That's ultimately why I got frustrated."
Mr Ruddoch said he believes Wairarapa councils have a will to recycle.
"I just don't think they've quite got there with the infrastructure."
However Mr Ruddoch says Wairarapa has made the right decision in trucking waste out of the region.
"Shipping out is a better idea than building a new landfill," Mr Ruddock said.
"The costs would have been more expensive than the operation we've got."
"It's the lesser of two evils."
