Chathams challenge a hole lot of bother

It could be the most difficult recycling challenge in New Zealand.

For years, Chatham Islanders have put their rubbish into a big hole. Once the hole was chocker, they would set it on fire to compact it and more rubbish would be added.

Everything from batteries, TVs, fishing gear, to household rubbish, beer bottles, oil and paint went into the ground.

The 600 locals are moving to a new system and for the first time are being encouraged to think clean and green, and recycle.

Recyclable waste is being collected from two waste stations and, once it is sorted, it is being baled up to be shipped to Timaru.

Non-recylable waste is being baled and put into a new fully lined landfill to collect leachates, which will be treated at the island’s water treatment plant.

Council chief executive Owen Pickles said recycling was a big change of thinking for locals and he estimated they were ‘‘20 years’’ behind the rest of the country. The previous system ‘‘was quite damaging’’ to the environment and the council could not keep digging holes forever, he said.

Chatham Islanders pay about $600,000 in rates annually and Pickles said the new system, which cost $1.96 million, would not have been possible without

‘‘It is a long process but people are slowly changing their way of thinking.’’ Jason Goomes

central government support.

Although the Chathams was keen to increase tourism, the rubbish burnoffs had not been a turnoff to visitors. ‘‘It was a bit of a tourist attraction when it happened.’’

A few years ago, the island was featured in a major New Zealand magazine. The main picture was of the landfill.

The man in charge of convincing locals to stop digging holes, Jason Goomes, said his job was not easy. ‘‘I am a local so I can get away with talking to them a little harsher than the council can.’’

Some locals ‘‘grizzle’’ and do not want to change but he kept reminding them the island was running out of room to dig new holes. ‘‘It is a long process but people are slowly changing their way of thinking.’’

He believed his boss was being generous in saying locals were 20 years behind the rest of the country. ‘‘I keep telling them you have had it easy for 40 years but you have to change.’’