Waste not, want not
Ruapehu council gets innovative with leftovers
Ruapehu district residents are being asked to reduce the amount of waste they produce by more than 50 per cent over the next two years. The landfill at Taumarunui closed in October last year, and since then an average two truck and trailer loads of waste has had to be trucked to the Hampton Downs landfill north of Hamilton each week.
Ruapehu District Council would like to reduce that to one truck-and-trailer load, customer services manager Margaret Hawthorne said.
The council’s waste management and minimisation plan has set a target of 175kg of waste per person per year by the 2022-23 year, down from 368kg.
The slogan is Zero Waste by 2040, and the Environment Ministry is providing funding towards it.
Ruapehu has a new food waste collection service, wants to turn its transfer stations into resource recovery centres and has employed a sustainability educator.
In 2017 the district’s 12,000 residents, and the 5000 visitors on a good day in the ski season, produced a total of 12,000 tonnes of solid waste, with an estimated 70 per cent of that able to be diverted from landfill.
An analysis found 30 per cent was food waste, 15 per cent was nappies and sanitary products, 14 per cent was potentially recyclable paper and 9 per cent was textiles.
Ruapehu residents with kerbside collection can now put out a bag of rubbish for a charge of $4 every week.
They also have a 60-litre crate for recyclables, which are sent to Taupo¯ for sorting and sale.
They can choose whether to collect food waste separately. Those who select that option receive a kitchen bin lined with a recyclable bag, and a larger kerbside bin, which is collected every week.
Some people choose to compost their food waste at home but were offered the bins anyway.
“Quite a few people said ‘No, I don’t want one. I compost.’ Our response was ‘That’s fantastic. Keep composting, but if you sell the house or get a tenant, you will have the bins ready’,” Hawthorne said.
The food waste is taken to a Taumarunui facility near the closed landfill, where it is composted with green waste and wood chips. The resulting compost will be used to cap the landfill and feed council gardens.
Any excess was expected to be saleable by the end of this year, Hawthorne said.
A hot composting unit, similar to one used by Xtreme Zero Waste in Raglan, is being built at the facility.
Food composting is a bold move for a small rural council.
“I think we have been pretty innovative with our food waste collection, but it’s hard to change habits,” Hawthorne said.
Other councils are predicted to make similar moves, as pressure to reduce waste intensifies.
The district also has seven transfer stations. Waimarino’s, in Ohakune, now diverts 50 per cent of the waste brought there away from landfill. Taumarunui is looking to set up a dump shop, like the one in Ohakune.
E-waste from all the transfer stations is sent to a Tokoroa facility for processing. Cleanfill waste is accepted at the Taumarunui facility.
The reduction results could be good, Hawthorne said. Some people said they were only putting out a rubbish bag once a fortnight since food waste collection started.
Any reduction would have to be confirmed by a waste audit that is taking place this week.
Hawthorne said she especially wanted to know how much food waste was being thrown out as rubbish, rather than collected.
I think we have been pretty innovative with our food waste collection, but it’s hard to change habits.
Margaret Hawthorne
Aformer transfer station in Ohakune is now a resource recovery centre that diverts about half the waste it receives from going to landfill. The Waimarino Resource Recovery Centre in Old Station Rd took on its new identity on March 2 last year. It’s now run by Ethical Waste, employs five people on a living wage and diverts about half of what is brought to other uses.
That was up from the estimated 30 per cent diverted when the centre was a transfer station with two staff, waste minimiser Sam Gray said.
The centre is the first of what could be many in the Ruapehu District Council’s Zero Waste 2040 challenge. Since its Taumarunui landfill closed in October last year, truckloads of waste are being driven to Hampton Downs Landfill, north of Hamilton.
Zero waste is the vision. For Gray, 90 per cent diversion would be pretty good. Centres such as Raglan’s Xtreme Zero Waste had managed 80 per cent diversion, he said.
The Waimarino centre serves the district south of the National Park. Town residents have kerbside collection of rubbish, recyclables and food waste. It is mainly visitors, businesses and rural residents who bring waste to the centre, which is open from 8am to 3pm, except on Thursdays.
The cost for what goes to landfill is $4.70 for a 60-litre bag, or $42.50 per cubic metre.
Often the diversion from landfill saves money for the people who drop off the waste. “Some people come in expecting to have three cubic metres of waste and end up only paying for one,” Gray said.
Construction workers used to tip everything off trailers and into the waste skips. They were now layering their trailers, with recoverable items like green waste on top.
The Ruapehu District Council pays the wages of three of the centre staff. The others are paid from the proceeds of items that are brought in as waste but sold instead. Prices were kept low to keep turnover high, Gray said. The centre’s one shed was now full of saleable items. Some had overflowed into shipping containers and Ohakune Events Charitable Trust had sponsored a shelter between two of them.
Winstone Pulp International (WPI) is planning to sponsor a second shelter.
Any food waste is collected weekly. Clothes are the biggest sellers, while there are also plenty of ski poles and snowboards on offer.
“They can be used for so many different things — seats, garden art, fences,” Gray said.
Scrap metal, including fridges, can be left with no charge because metal recyclers will pay for it. There are piles for green waste, a separate one for flax and another for concrete.
Mulch is sold, and the centre is taking over agricultural waste disposal from PGG Wrightson.
All this is taking up more space. The centre’s shed will be extended this year and a new area is being prepared for car parking.
People were getting used to the idea that they could buy things that other people wanted to throw away, and bring things the centre could sell.
I think people want to do the right thing. They’ve just never been given the
chance. Sam Gray, waste minimiser