Rangitikei's Bonny Glen Landfill to take Taranaki waste

A truckload of waste approaches the gateway to Bonny Glen Landfill. Photo file / Bevan Conley

From August onward the Bonny Glen Landfill near Marton will accept three truckloads of waste a day from Taranaki, Midwest Disposals general manager Paul Mullinger says.

The Midwest Disposals landfill is owned by two large companies, Waste Management New Zealand and Envirowaste. In May 2015 it got resource consent to expand from a 2.7 million cubic metres storage capacity to 12.7 million cubic million metres.

It takes waste from Whanganui and Palmerston North, and also smaller centres in Wairarapa, Manawatū and Rangitīkei.

It's already taking some Taranaki waste, Mullinger said, but cannot say how much due to commercial sensitivity. From early August the amount will be three truckloads a day, with the waste coming from New Plymouth and the Stratford and South Taranaki districts.

The landfill develops more potential space for waste every year, and the addition won't involve any major expansion to the site.

"We have one liner on the base in the landfill, and capping on the top. The void space in between is what we can sell for people to put rubbish in."

Until November 2017, leachate from the landfill was treated and discharged into Tutaenui Stream. Since then a full treatment system has been installed on the landfill site.

As waste in the landfill decomposes, water is released and is added to by rainfall percolating through it. This leachate is all collected and treated to "a fairly high standard" that removes organics and nitrogen.

Since August 2018, the treated leachate has been added to Whanganui's wastewater treatment plant.

Members of the public seldom get to see the landfill or the leachate treatment in operation, Mullinger said, but district mayors have been impressed with it.

"Everyone is staggered, because it isn't like what they can recall from 30 years ago."

Mullinger is originally from the food industry, and said he was there to make a difference and was part of the community too.

"We just sit there in the background and we don't make trouble, and if there are issues we deal to them."