Nappy disposal dumped after complaints
A Christchurch nappy composting company will refund money to parents who have paid a fee to use the company’s collection bins.
Karen Ashby, chief executive of Envirocomp, made the decision after customers became unhappy when they learnt that nappies were going directly to landfill.
The landfill dumping was a temporary arrangement until a new system was up and running next year, she said.
Ashby said she had been as transparent as possible about the transition but many customers were unhappy about the dumping and had made their feelings known on social media.
As a result the service, which provided compostable bags and an access card for the bin collection of nappies, was being discontinued and refunds would be available for any unused bags purchased.
Prices varied depending on the number of bags bought but the lowest was $41 for six bags plus an access card for the bins.
People didn’t feel as guilty about buying vegetables in plastic wrapping or car tyres which end up in landfills, Ashby said.
Parents also had the choice of using cloth nappies if they were unhappy about the suspension of the scheme, she said.
One mother expressed disappointment on the company’s Facebook page, saying she had many bags that were unlikely to be useful because her daughter would be toilet trained by the time Ashby’s new recycling venture was up and running in 2018.
Ashby said the transition wasn’t a problem for her commercial clients, such as retirement homes or childcare centres, but was clearly an issue for many individual customers.
She was in the process of joining with a new business partner, Eneform, to exploit pyrolysis technology, which would be capable of extracting fuel from a range of waste products.
The technology has been commercialised in conjunction with Southern Cross Engineering and other specialists. Plans are already advanced to create plants in Canterbury and Waikato and the money for the project is being raised in conjunction with the New Zealand Development Trust.
The Envirocomp business would be transferred to a new company and the nappy waste would be recycled using the new technology when the first new plant opens in early 2018, Ashby said.
Eneform principal Andrew Simcock said the nappy waste was a valuable addition to the plastics and tyres that would be treated by the planned plants.