Stink may sink composting

All Christchurch’s organic waste could be sent to landfill if a proposal to immediately close the city’s composting plant is approved.

City councillors have agreed to move Christchurch’s pungent composting plant, but that process could take up to six years and the plant could be shut down in the meantime.

The council previously resolved to find a solution after years of complaints from residents about foul smells and dust, and notices from Environment Canterbury (ECan) that the plant was in breach of its resource consent.

At a city council meeting yesterday, councillors voted to shift the plant rather than try to improve it on the existing Bromley site. Plans to redevelop it were dropped last year when tenders proved too costly.

They also requested a report from staff within a month on costs and implications of ‘‘immediately closing’’ the plant, which is owned by the council and run by private operator Living Earth. Implications include effects on the environment and quality of life.

Councillors made their decision after a staff report outlining a time frame of up to six years to find an alternative site and to design, consent and open a new plant.

Bromley residents who have lived with the odours and dust made deputations at the start of the meeting.

The plant produces compost that is sold commercially. The staff report said sending organic waste to Kate Valley Landfill would emit methane, which could be captured to generate energy. ‘‘However, no landfill gas capture system is fully effective, and the most sustainable solution is to process organic waste through a bespoke system, such as composting or anaerobic digestion,’’ it says.

‘‘If the existing plant is forced to cease operation in the absence of an alternative, the organics waste would be directed to landfill ... This action would be contrary to council’s own climate change and waste-minimisation policies.’’

Cr Pauline Cotter said the ‘‘double whammy’’ of the composting plant and damaged wastewater plant nearby was ‘‘just too much’’ for the community. ‘‘They have been robbed of their quality of life for too long. Enough is enough.’’

Cr Yani Johanson apologised to residents and said the council had made a mistake in building an open composting plant near households where there is a prevailing easterly wind.

He said significant profits had been made by Living Earth ‘‘despite the fact that there have been thousands of complaints and numerous non-compliances’’.

Residents spoke of feeling trapped in their homes, and said the dust, contaminated air and stench of rotting waste combined to ruin their quality of life and the

council had repeatedly let them down.

One accused ‘‘green-supporting councillors’’ of remaining silent in the face of ‘‘mind-boggling’’ breaches of environmental standards at the organics plant.

Michael Williams accused the council of a bias towards Bromley because of its long association with the wastewater plant and bad smells. ‘‘This is going to take six years to fix? You’ve got to be kidding.’’

Banks Peninsula MP Tracey McLellan told councillors the community would ‘‘have you on the clock’’.

She encouraged the council to seek a partnership, such as with other local authorities, and said the Government should be able to help fast-track consenting for a new location. She last month presented councillors with a 300-plus signature petition from residents wanting the plant moved.

ECan councillor Nicole Marshall, speaking on her own behalf, said residential occupation of Bromley predated the council’s industrial activities, and the concentration of waste facilities in the area was damaging residents’ health and economic wellbeing.

She called on the council to immediately close the composting plant and then decide where to re-establish it. ‘‘You are spending millions of dollars a year on a facility that is poisoning a community . . . The council is a bad neighbour and the community wants you gone.’’

The plant composts 50,000 tonnes of organic waste annually. In late 2020, after pressure from residents, the council told the company it must stop putting animal carcasses through the plant. Other measures have since been introduced to improve the odour.

ECan has previously given the city council deadlines to stop the odour emissions and has issued repeated noncompliance notices.

Last year, tenders to fully enclose the plant exceeded the council’s $21.5 million budget. It then agreed to look at potential new sites, as well as new technologies.

Council staff will give councillors a shortlist of potential locations and costs by next February.

Commercial opportunities, partnerships and joint ventures will be looked at. From then, investigating, consenting and building a new plant could take three, or ‘‘realistically’’ up to four or five, years, the report says.

Following the meeting, Bromley resident Vickie Wilson welcomed the vote to shift the plant but was concerned at the time frame.

She said the proposal to close it in the meantime was ‘‘a brilliant option’’.