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Backyard dumping could escalate under user-pays rubbish plan - tenants group Mon, 5 Jul 2021, 11:01AM
A tenants rights group is warning that backyard dumping will escalate if council chiefs get a user-pays plan wrong for Christchurch s kerbside collection. Photo / Supplied
Backyard dumping could escalate under user-pays rubbish plan - tenants group Mon, 5 Jul 2021, 11:01AM
A tenants rights group is warning that backyard dumping will escalate if council chiefs get a user-pays plan wrong for Christchurch s kerbside collection.
The Christchurch City Council is surveying 16,000 residents for their thoughts on charges based on the size of rubbish, recycling and greens bins.
The plan is to reduce trash going into landfills with a separate charge instead of it being blended into landowners rates bills.
In 2019, just 23 truckloads of recycling went to landfill. People are getting better at following the rules, with 90 per cent of yellow bins being recycled in April, 93 per cent in March and 89 per cent in February. In June last year, just 49 per cent of yellow bin material could be recycled.
JOSEPH JOHNSON/STUFF
Christchurch s EcoCentral recycling depot is dealing with a lot of contamination, meaning the recycling is unable to be processed and has to be dumped. (Video first published on June 2, 2020) Most weeks since early March have had at least one day when no trucks were sent to landfill. But residents still have a long way to go to get back to 2019 levels. In April, 55 trucks were still sent to landfill.
During the first week of January, 128 truckloads were recycled and 32 were sent to landfill – 40 per cent more than the 23 truckloads that went to landfill in the whole of 2019. However, it is much lower than the 88 truckloads (52 per cent of all truckloads) that went to landfill during the last week in May. On average, about 600 bins fill a truck. About 1760 recycling trucks have gone to landfill since May 4 last year, costing Christchurch City Council – and ratepayers – about $1.7 million. That equates to between 7000 and 8800 tonnes of recyclable material that has had to be thrown away. Trucks containing more than 10 per cent rubbish have to be dumped.
Lawn mower-by-trade Neil Holdaway, owner of Straight Lines, said the change had spurred him onto a private waste collector. “I worked out a couple of days ago, after another overcharging, that this was going to sink my business . I have a lawn I do for $40 by filling up several wool bags halfway. But I m now charged $11.10 per half bag, so if I fill up more than three from the job then I don t make any money.”
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It costs $22.20 to dump a wool sack of grass in Marlborough. Upping his prices would lose him most of his clients, and prevent him from picking up more, he said.