‘Nasty surprise’ as hundreds of kilograms of meat thrown in Christchurch bins

Someone had thrown 670 kilograms of meat in public bins in the western suburbs of Wigram and Hornby in recent weeks. Photo / 123RF

By RNZ

A mystery meat dumper has been filling Christchurch’s public bins with hundreds of kilograms of meat in recent weeks.

The dumping comes as Christchurch City Council reveals the cost of cleaning up fly-tipping from the city’s roadsides was more than $800,000 in the past six years.

Christchurch City Councillor Andrei Moore said in recent weeks someone had thrown 670kg of meat in public bins in the western suburbs of Wigram and Hornby.

“We had 220 kilos on one occasion and 200 on another a couple of weeks afterwards,” he said.

Last night was the biggest dumping yet, with 14 bags containing 250kg of meat chucked.

“It’s hard to say exactly where it might have come from - if it’s from a business or is it from a homekill job - it’s hard to say,” Moore said.

“Presumably it’s to avoid paying the dumping fees. The fees are a reasonable amount ... to dump this much meat would’ve cost $150 to $170 or so.”

Anyone looking to use the public bins might have got an unpleasant surprise.

“You could see the meat literally from just looking into the bin, so any kids who went to put a wrapper in the bin would’ve had a nasty surprise of a meat-filled bin,” Moore said.

It was not entirely clear what the contents of the bags were, though it was believed to be beef and pork.

“There are unusual items dumped all over the place all the time, which does come at a significant cost for ratepayers,” Moore said.

“It costs a huge amount to send teams out to pick up litter from the street or dumped bags or, likewise, emptying public bins comes at a significant expense as well.

“These bins need to be there for everyone to use for out-and-about waste, not household or commercial waste, otherwise they just won’t be sustainable to remain.”

It cost the council $16,000 to clear illegally dumped rubbish from streets in 2017, but last year it was $105,000, in 2021 it cost $230,000 and the problem peaked at $330,000 in 2020.

There were 22,229 jobs relating to fly-tipping during the the last road maintenance contract period.

In 2023, there were 3142 reports of rubbish dumped in Christchurch parks.

“It’s really disappointing to see these jobs continuing to come through and it’s not fair on others who do the right thing,” city streets maintenance manager Steve Guy said.

“The money is coming at the expense of other projects at a time where every single dollar we can put into renewing and repairing roads and footpaths is a priority for the council and our residents.”

But the cost was set to increase, as levy rates for municipal landfills increased $10 per tonne to $60 per tonne in July 2024.

“If we continue to see the same rates of fly-tipping at these new rates, it will end up costing ratepayers more than $1.3 million when the current contract periods end - and that’s not including the money that would also be spent clearing dumped rubbish from parks and other council facilities,” Guy said.

“For that kind of money, we could repair an entire road.”

The council was looking at ways to hold people to account.

“A lot of the rubbish is stuff that can be put in council red bins for free disposal, or when larger items are dumped it can be really dangerous and a risk to the environment.

“Although we are looking at prosecution options, we would much prefer it didn’t get to that point in the first instance, so we really want people to do the right thing.”

Illegal dumping could be reported using the Snap, Send, Solve app or by ringing the council on 03 941 8999.