CONFUSION and questions about value for money regarding rural rubbish handling in the district have surfaced on social media and Ōpōtiki News is trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.

It began with a person asking for tips on how to manage personal rubbish and recycling in rural areas – the question soon led to suggestions, criticisms and more questions.

We spoke to a few rural residents, asking how they fared.

Mereaira Hata said although she lives rurally, she’s lucky enough to get kerbside pickup.

She recycles paper or keeps it to light her fire in winter.

“I compost brown paper, vegetable green-waste is also composted, cardboard is recycled or used to make a new garden,” she said.

“I am separating tins, bottles and plastics.”

Ms Hata cleans all plastic and gives what’s useful to her marae to be used as food containers.

“I don’t want the marae pots and bowls to walk out the door,” she said.

Glass jars, ice-cream containers and the trays used when selling meat in are perfect as take-away containers.

“I can offer them a free container for taking away leftover food at the marae,” Ms Hata said.

Tablelands resident Michelle Kaa said she used to do all the sorting and cleaning a few years back.

“I had four big wheelie bins for it and I would go to the resource centre every three months, even tipping my own bins – I would get charged heaps for it and it pissed me off,” she said.

“Then I found out most of it gets trucked over to Raglan ways and put in a hole, because most of the plastic doesn’t get recycled at all.”

That was the end of separating-and-recycling for Ms Kaa.

Instead she pays Handee Cans $57.50 for emptying her 200-litre bin twice a month, but says she’ll change to pick up when needed as she does not make enough rubbish.

“Recycling is a con,” she said.

“I compost green waste and burn paper and cardboard.

For Jane Curley, the new weighbridge system at the recycling centre has been confusing.

“We had an experience at the recycling centre – not bad, but not good either,” she said.

When driving in, she was told the new weighbridge was in place.

“We had plastic and glass and we got rid of that in the usual places, but we didn’t know where to get rid of a small bag with unsorted general waste,” Mrs Curley said.

Turning right after the weighbridge, they found the dumping place.

“It was a long way and we worried about glass getting into the tyres, but we found a skip for general rubbish and dropped it off.”

Not knowing where to go next, the couple headed for the gate and drove through.

“We were told we should have gone back to the weighbridge; that we didn’t do it right,” Mrs Curley said.

“The bag weighed less than a few kgs – no one was rude, but the experience was confusing.”

The following visit was not great either.

The couple drove in to drop off their sorted recycling and had “very little” general rubbish to drop off.

“It was 1.5 kilograms plus an awkward chair,” Mrs Curley said.

Their car weighed 1980kg going in and 1980kg going out.

“The weighbridge deals in 20kg differences – and we were charged $5.98,” Mrs Curley said

Ōpōtiki District Council engineering and services group manager Nathan Hughes said there had been a lot of community discussion about waste lately.

While much of it had been helpful, there were few misconceptions to tidy up.

Regarding the urban collection route, there was a targeted rate that was paid by those on the collection route.

“The western side is collected on a Wednesday and the route is from Paerata Ridge Road to the Waioweka bridge, including Waiotahe Drifts and Dunes, Hukutaia and Woodlands,” Mr Hughes said.

“There’s a short gap on State Highway 2 from the 100km sign as it’s too difficult for our trucks to safely collect along the state highway.”

The area between the two bridges and out to Otara is the eastern route and their collection day is Tuesday.

Mr Hughes said outside those areas, a rates invoice would not include a specific targeted-rate line item “urban refuse collection charge”.

“Those households use the three resource recovery centres in Ōpōtiki, Waihau Bay and Te Kaha.”

Mr Hughes said the cost of disposing of Ōpōtiki’s rubbish and recycling was increasing each year.

“There are fewer options for our plastic waste to be recycled domestically, we have to transport all our recycling to larger centres for processing,” he said.

“This means that across all our different recyclables, none – except sometimes metal – make a profit.”

In addition, the waste levies Ōpōtiki District Council pays to central government are going up each year.

“Waste levies are used to fund all kinds of waste-related activities and campaigns, especially to try and reduce the waste we are producing nationally,” Mr Hughes said.

“Many of our issues with waste are bigger than just Ōpōtiki District Council.”

Mr Hughes said people lived in a global system that put the onus on consumers to pay for – both financially and environmentally – every piece of recyclable material or single-use plastic packaging.

“It is almost impossible to avoid in our modern lives,” he said.

The council is seeking more feedback on waste topics in its review of its Waste Management and Minimisation Plan.  

“The issues and solutions are bigger than one council, but the WMMP is our roadmap for getting to zero waste and reducing the environmental and economic costs on our communities,” Mr Hughes said.

With the weighbridge, he said there had been a few minor issues settling in, but the feedback had been overwhelmingly positive”.

“It is a clearer system and it encourages people to remove and sort recycling so they don’t need to pay waste charges,” Mr Hughes said.

“With the free recycling in Ōpōtiki, most people have noticed a slight drop in their overall waste charges since the weighbridge started operating.”