Waipa¯ looks for Xtreme waste ideas
Waipa¯ is looking to follow in Raglan’s footsteps by setting up a resource recovery centre to intercept building material, clothing, concrete and scrap metal heading to landfill.
Instead, those household and secondhand items could be reused and given a new life.
That’s backed by a solid waste audit in October 2020 where the Waipa¯ District Council found more than half the items thrown into residents’ household rubbish could have been diverted from landfill.
The council had been investigating how to increase resource recovery in its communities and was promoting a few options, hoping for more public feedback.
Waipa¯ ’s waste minimisation officer
Sally Fraser said the council could work with existing transfer stations to increase the types of waste material diverted from landfill.
‘‘Or, we could build a resource recovery centre where the council could on sell, repair,
reuse or recycle more products.’’
A recovery centre could divert waste from landfill, and it could also be used for educational programmes to help reduce overall business or household waste.
It could also create a few new jobs.
A resource recovery centre isn’t budgeted for in the long term plan under review this year, but the council is promoting it at the same time, with a couple of options for people to consider.
Its preferred option is to develop a resource recovery centre on an existing site with a building already in place, which could cost about $2.1 million.
‘‘The upfront investment would be reduced as a site could be leased, either from council or privately,’’ the council said on its What’s Next Waipa¯ website.
‘‘It also reduces risk as the resource recovery centre could be moved to a different site in the future if it had to.’’
Waipa¯ council staff visited Xtreme Zero Waste’s resource recovery centre in Raglan, set up by the community 20 years ago.
Xtreme Zero Waste was contracted by Waikato District Council to operate weekly kerbside collections and the recovery centre in Raglan.
About 178,833kg of waste was diverted from landfills each month, thanks to the centre, which included a reuse shop, a retail wood yard, a retail metal yard, a public recycling bay, a refuse transfer station and a green waste drop-off.
It had also become a training centre and had created about 40 jobs.
Feedback for the Waipa¯ District Council’s long term plan closed on April 27. It said it was too early to say whether people supported setting up a recovery centre.
But 85 people had commented on the recovery centre concept via the council’s website and a hearing on submissions was set for May 11 and 12.