Southern Landfill Entrance Sign
The first thing I learnt was that all the different regions of New Zealand oversee and run their own rubbish collection. Different councils can run their own initiatives that in no way affect other regions.
Rubbish collection in Wellington is free and does not come from taxes. Drops made at the landfill using the weigh scales and the yellow general rubbish bags fund the collection and processes at the landfill. The collection of both recycling and trash is dependent on where the person lives in Wellington. Apartment buildings are responsible for their own rubbish as the likelihood of contaminated products is too high to warrant regular pickup. General residents in the city can put their recycled items in clear plastic bags on the curb instead of using the blue co-mingle bags. Residents outside of the city can apply for a pack of 52 recycle bags a year for free.
One issue faced with both the blue and yellow bags is they themselves are non-recyclable. The plastic used is thicker than the average plastic bag to help prevent rips but this is still an area worth looking into due to the number of bags that get processed.
An alternative to the bags is the black and yellow wheelie bins that are used for co-mingle recycling and the green glass bins. The use of these bins are taken quite strictly and after speaking with a member of the teams that investigates into the misuse of these bins I found out that house and even streets can be banned from recycling if the rules are not followed. Even putting glass in general rubbish can result in fines as the glass is crushed in the truck with all the general rubbish and contaminates the whole load. Once a house has had 3 strikes, their bins are taken away and no more recycling will be picked up from their residence.
Not all houses can be given the wheelie bins however. The bins will not be given to houses on one way roads, busy streets, have no foot path and have more than a 13* gradient hill.
The rules set out for these bins appears straight forward but it was brought up that a way to make sure people that people follow the rules of recycling will be of use to the council as this means they do not have to send people out to deal with bad recycling.
Confiscated bin for incorrect recycling
Confiscated bins for incorrect recycling
Recycling Bin Storage
Recycling Bin Storage
The southern landfill itself is a Class A landfill and consists of 3 sites. The first site is under the car park at the Second Treasures shop, a second is currently being settled and a third is being filled. The methane gas is filtered off of the landfills and is turned into electricity to power 1000 homes a year by Nova Energy. Daily Waste deal with curb side pick ups and Enviro Waste for recycling. The collection of recycling is done bi weekly. Co-mingle recycling is one week and glass the following.
The plastic recycling is split depending on what the PET levels are. Levels 1 and 3-7 are sent to China to be processed while level 2 is sent to Palmerston North and Auckland. Glass is separated by Clear, Brown and Green and sent to O-I in Auckland. Metal is separated between Macaulay Metals for aluminium and Pacific Steel Group for steel. Cardboard is sent to Auckland to be remade by Carter Holt Harvey.
Recycle bins at Second Treasures Carpark
Recycle bins at Second Treasures Carpark
Co-mingle Recycling Rules
Cardboard Recycling Rules
Glass Recycling Bin at Second Treasure Carpark
Glass Recycling Rules
Nova Energy Electricity Generation Plant
Nova Energy Electricity Generation Plant
Nova Energy Electricity Generation Plant
