A soiled nappy found in recycling. Photo by Craig Baxter.
The Dunedin City Council is planning more door-to-door
checks aimed at lifting the lid on the contents of the city's
wheelie bins, as part of a crackdown on recycling
contamination.
Council solid waste manager Ian Featherston yesterday said
extra checks were planned that would see council staff or
contractors scrutinising recycling wheelie bins on streets
for improper use.
He also warned the council would need to consider raising the
$63-per-household cost of the scheme, paid through rates
bills, if contamination levels continued to soar.
The $63 cost was based in part on an expected contamination
level of 5%, he said.
However, it was confirmed last week a steady stream of used
nappies, needles and other non-recyclable items - even
including a pig's head - had driven contamination levels up
to about 12%.
"It's much higher than we had initially anticipated," Mr
Featherston said.
"If the contamination rates keep staying up this high, we'll
have to be putting up the cost of the service.
"We can't expect the contractors and the service to be
suffering through people just using it for rubbish."
His comments came after the ODT last week reported workers at
the Green Island recycling plant were weeding out high
volumes of non-recyclables discarded in the ratepayer-funded
wheelie bins.
One worker was also awaiting blood test results, after being
stabbed by one of many needles and syringes arriving with the
city's recycling.
Mr Featherston yesterday described the behaviour of some
residents misusing the wheelie bins as "amazing".
"It's just laziness by some residents, and it's just
contaminating and mucking up the system."
Plans for extra wheelie bin inspections were being discussed
with contractors, and would likely result in more warning
cards being issued and wheelie bins confiscated, he
confirmed.
"We're going to be looking at more of the bins ... so that we
get the contamination levels down and have the right
materials in the bins."
He would not say when the checks were likely to begin, for
fear of tipping off offenders.
Other New Zealand centres operating similar collectionsystems
had contamination levels around 5%, and Dunedin's higher
level could be put down in part to people "trying to test the
system", Mr Featherston believed.
Staff at the Green Island plant were being "more stringent",
meaning a cleaner stream of recyclables available for sale at
the end of the process, but also higher volumes of
contamination collected.
The appearance of needles and syringes was an industry-wide
problem, but contractors in Dunedin were discussing ways of
better protecting their staff, he said.
"If people just took the conscientious step of only recycling
what we've got [listed on wheelie bins], and putting the rest
in rubbish bags, we'd be OK."
chris.morris@odt.co.nz
A name, residential address, and (preferably residential) telephone number is required from readers who comment on ODT Online. These details will not be visible to site visitors.