City looking south for zero-waste solutions

The season for scavengers and the kerbside pile-up has got the Auckland City Council thinking once again about opening a series of drop-off points around the city for goods to be recycled and sold.

The council is looking at successful ventures in places such as Waitakere, Christchurch and Oamaru where goods such as household furniture and whiteware are repaired and sold - sometimes with a 12-month guarantee.

After a reduction in the city's rubbish mountain stalled after the switch to small wheelie bins in 2001, the council is looking at ways to cut the amount of waste sent to landfills. About 75 per cent of the rubbish in wheelie bins could be recycled or composted.

The regular household collection already trucks 84,000 tonnes of rubbish to the tip each year at a cost of $12 million.

Works committee chairman and Green Party councillor Neil Abel said the council needed to take a "quantum leap" to fulfil a commitment made in February to pursue a zero waste landfill policy.

He was speaking after attending a zero waste conference in Kaikoura this month that included visits to several South Island waste reduction initiatives.

"A lot of these initiatives had a community buy-in and that is something we in Auckland need to explore," Mr Abel said.

He wanted Auckland City to swap its 120-litre rubbish bins for glass, plastic and tin recyclables and use the 45-litre blue recyclable bins for residual waste.

Waitakere and North Shore councils have become the first councils in New Zealand to introduce recycling collections with large, covered 140-litre recycle bins.

Mr Abel also wanted a return to the free garden waste coupon system to help reduce the amount of garden and kitchen waste that produced greenhouse gas emissions in landfills.

The previous council also dropped plans for drop-off recycling centres at Onehunga and Glen Innes even though officers found that between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the 9000 tonnes of inorganic rubbish was "recoverable" and could be reused.

The council has gone ahead with plans for a drop-off recycling centre on Waiheke at the site of the island's transfer station and is preparing a business plan for a drop-off centre on the isthmus. The plan will look at partnerships with the business community and other councils to develop a region-wide network of drop-off points.

Waitakere has operated a "resource recovery centre" in a shed at its transfer station at The Concourse, off Lincoln Rd, for about 18 months. Items being recovered include valuable metals such as aluminium and copper from car bodies, native timber, furniture and antiques.

Most of the furniture and appliances are sold through a local auction house.

The SuperShed in Christchurch employs five fulltime staff, while resource recovery parks in Oamaru and Twizel repaired whiteware goods and sold them with a six-month or 12-month guarantee.

Mr Abel said ultimately drop-off recycling centres should replace the two-yearly inorganic, kerbside collections, which were becoming less economic for contractors as scavengers got to the valuable recyclables first.

* The council's free Hazmobile collection for hazardous household waste will be in the public carpark on Motions Road, Western Springs, on Saturday from 10am to 2pm.

Most household hazardous waste is accepted for collection, including items such as paint, glues, pesticides, oil, cleaning products, batteries and mobile phones.

The council collects about 50 tonnes of hazardous materials a year.

Recycling ideas

* Initiatives being taken in the South Island to reduce rubbish:
* Tests in Christchurch on crushing glass to a fine sand for beach replenishment.
* Spraying telephone books with concrete for outdoor furniture in Ashburton.
* Offering guarantees on recycled and repaired whiteware in Oamaru and Twizel.
* Providing clear bags in Twizel to see if households sort their waste correctly.
* Setting up a recycled furniture store alongside antique shops in Christchurch.