Campers rubbish mayor’s crushing garbage comments
Frustrations are growing as piles of rotting rubbish are being dumped next to a compactor by holidaymakers on the Coromandel. But while the local mayor hit out, saying people were “totally lazy”, Herald readers said it had been broken for days.
Thames-Coromandel District Council placed solar-powered rubbish compactors at four sites before summer: Colville, Kuaotunu, O¯ poutere and Coroglen.
They require a $2 coin to squash up a deposit about the size of a typical council rubbish bag.
Now Thames-Coromandel Mayor Sandra Goudie will be making inquiries after holidaymakers complained a compactor was broken over the New Year period.
Earlier she hit out at the people dumping rubbish at the Colville site, suggesting they didn’t want to spend $2 to properly dispose of their trash.
“I would say that it’s largely visitors,” Goudie said.
“It’s incredibly frustrating. You would have thought when they were coming to an environment like Thames-Coromandel District — it’s such a beautiful environment — they would have more respect and look after it.
“It’s a minority, but a sizeable minority . . . It’s totally lazy.”
But Jacob Jensen, who was holidaying at Stony Bay, said the Colville compactor wasn’t working for at least nine days: “The compactor at Colville was out of order with piles of rubbish when we checked on our way to Stony Bay, again on a trip to Colville to get supplies, and when we left on the 3rd the rubbish was piled and still out of order.”
Jan McEwen, who was camping at the Waikawau Bay Department of Conservation (DoC) campsite, also said the crusher wasn’t working.
“After driving 20 minutes to deposit the rubbish and finding it didn’t work, instead people decided to leave it beside the machine rather than cart it back,” she said.
McEwen said the problem was exacerbated by the fact DoC decided to ban all rubbish disposal — other than compost bins — at the camp. This was also the case at the Port Jackson campsite.
“All very virtuous but near impossible to store all rubbish in the heat for over a week . . . people were not prepared to leave stinking rubbish at the back of their tent in the heat so they took it to the dump station at Colville,” she said.
Instead of pointing the finger at holidaymakers, McEwen said the “whole fiasco” had been the fault of DoC and the council.
“We have been camping at the same campground for many many years and there has never been this issue of dumping before. If the council had provided a suitable skip or carried out regular collections, dumping would not happen.”
When contacted by the Herald, Goudie said she was aware of a fault with the Colville crusher but didn’t know how long it was out of order.
“My husband and I wanted to use it ourselves, and I rang in and reported it wasn’t working,” she said.
“I’m surprised it was out of action for that long and I will be making inquiries about that.”
Goudie agreed DoC’s decision not to dispose of campers’ rubbish compounded the issue: “But that was their decision and there was nothing much we could do about that.”