City recycling haul still too rubbishy

Christchurch has not managed to get its recycling correct for a single day in the past nine weeks, leaving hundreds of tonnes needlessly being sent to landfill.

Council rubbish collectors have had to dump contaminated residential yellow bin waste every day since May 4, when recycling facility EcoCentral reopened after the coronavirus lockdown.

In that time 635 truckloads of recycling have had to be thrown out – almost half of what has been collected, or about 3175 tonnes.

What has been dumped in the past nine weeks is almost 30 times the amount for the whole of 2018-19, when just 23 trucks worth, or 115 tonnes, were sent to landfill.

The problem, caused by people throwing non-recyclable waste into their yellow bins, has cost ratepayers about $635,000.

Coupled with the 619 trucks that had to be dumped when EcoCentral closed during the pandemic to protect staff, the bill for the public has topped $1.3 million.

Despite repeated urgings by the Christchurch City Council for

people to take more care, last week more than a third of yellow bin waste that should have been recycled was sent to the tip.

The issue has triggered renewed efforts by the council to monitor what is going in the bins.

As of Friday inspectors had checked 28,862 bins across the city, dishing out 7439 gold stars for good practice and leaving leaflets for owners of 17,097 bins where standards were not up to scratch.

A further 4326 bins were so contaminated with general rubbish that they were left unemptied.

Council waste boss Helen Beaumont said there had been an improvement in the past two weeks. ‘‘This shows that many people are taking the time to understand what can be recycled in Christchurch, to clean their items and think about what they are putting into their yellow bin and that’s fantastic.’’

Where contamination is under 10 per cent of a truckload it can be removed and the recycling processed. Anything over that and the entire load is sent to landfill.

In 2018-19, 7.4 per cent of all material collected from yellow bins, 2826 tonnes, was rubbish that had to be removed and dumped.

Contamination comes mainly from food scraps, soft plastics, gas bottles, clothing, full rubbish bags, small appliances, tools, hazardous waste and garden waste.