Cust village recycling facility proposed
Cust residents may not need to travel so far to deal with their recycling if a proposed recycling facility goes ahead.
Residents currently have to transport their recycling to either Southbrook or Oxford.
The Cust Community Network (CCN) spent the last few weeks gauging public interest and possible objections to a facility.
CCN acting chair Kirstyn Barnett said the ‘‘first check box was ticked’’, now the group could focus on how to make it a reality.
‘‘The recycling issue isn’t new ... but now that there’s a push towards increasing recycling and the growth in population around Cust, it seems like the right time to address it,’’ she said.
Cust resident Cathy Price said both recycling and rubbish were an issue for residents. She herself would store household refuse for a month to save on trips to Southbrook.
‘‘By the time you get home from work, gather it all up and get to Rangiora, it’s closed.’’
She said it was not a good look that residents outside of Waimakariri District Council (WDC) rubbish collection zones were paying for collection on the price of bags but no rubbish was collected.
Having a local recycling facility would help alleviate some of the cost, Price said.
‘‘It will help, but ideally, if you’re paying for the bags, they should pick it up.’’
Price said it would ‘‘be ideal’’ if any future recycling facility included rubbish collection services for Cust residents.
Barnett said the CCN would be open to discussing the rubbish collection issue in future as well.
The recycling project would need to be publicly consulted and a location with easy vehicle access decided upon before anything happened, Barnett said.
Wherever a facility was installed, it would be a similar set- up to Oxford’s mixed recycling skip.
‘‘Where we [CCN] come in is we can keep an eye on it and report any issues to the council.’’
Barnett said there were more than 100 positive responses to online polls on Neighbourly and Facebook.
‘‘I was pleased to see comments on the poll that people would recycle more if it was local.’’
The CCN AGM and talk with WDC solid waste asset manager Kitty Waghorn would be held at Cust School, 7:30pm on Wednesday, June 14, and would be open to the public.