Almost three-quarters of our recycling’s ending up at the dump, a whistleblower claims.
Every week, tonnes of mixed recycling from residential addresses across Queenstown-Lakes are collected by council contractors.
The expectation is the recycling will be sorted at Glenda Drive’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), and as much as possible sent to different parts of the country to be reused.
Instead, much of it may only be travelling as far as Victoria Flats.
Waste Management New Zealand Ltd is contracted by the council to carry out the recycling and waste services across the district, including sorting waste at the Frankton facility and determining what goes to landfill and what doesn’t.
The anonymous whistleblower, who often works at the MRF where sorting takes place, tells Mountain Scene they estimate about 70% of matter ends up at landfill, because of inefficient and problematic processes.
The issue, they claim, is the volume of recycling taken in by the centre in Frankton is far greater than it’s designed to take — three to four times the amount.
‘Everyone can clearly see it’s very broken’
As a result, the machine sorting paper from other waste gets clogged easily, so staff often shovel recycling into landfill crates to avoid it breaking down.
They estimate someone is shovelling almost half the day.
The whistleblower claims every person working at the facility is aware potential ly salvageable recycling matter is being thrown away, even if they’re not happy about it.
Dodgy processes: To the left of this photo is the conveyor which takes material coming into the Materials Recovery Facility to the sorting line. The bins beneath the line collect clean cardboard (left) and landfill (right), and those just visible on the far side collect clean plastics
They say everyone agrees the process is ‘‘rubbish … everyone can clearly see it’s very broken, from right up at management to the line workers’’.
‘‘Everyone who works around this site knows it’s not doing a good job.’’
The revelation comes after council, last May, started kerbside recycling bin checks to help reduce contamination — bins heavily contaminated weren’t emptied.
And earlier this year, council’s solid waste contracts manager Laura Gledhill revealed 4.8 tonnes of unprocessed recycling was sent to landfill on January 11 due to ‘‘Waste Management staff short ages, recyclable market challenges and the summer peak’’.
New facility ”some years away”
The council doesn’t say if there is any recyclable material going to landfill which is not verified to be contaminated.
Instead, media man Sam White, on behalf of the solid waste team, says ‘‘it’s no secret that the current facility is near the end of its life and struggling to keep up with how quickly our district is growing’’ and ‘‘planning for a new facility is underway’’.
White says due to investment, siting and consenting, it’ll be ‘‘some years away’’ and will have more advanced sorting technologies to help reduce the proportion sent to landfill.
Council says the MRF in Frankton currently processes between nine and 11 tonnes of recycling from both residential and commercial collection, which is ‘‘close to the capacity of the facility’’.
That, council says, is the amount of mixed recycling placed on the conveyors and processed.
It doesn’t include other products like glass and commercially-collected cardboard, which are sent to the MRF but not placed on conveyors.
Council won’t say whether that’s the actual amount taken in by the materials facility, nor how much of that’s being sent to landfill.
Inside look: The pit at the facility where yellow-bin material is placed prior to sorting
It does say the average contamination rate per month for the centre — since the start of July last year — is 13.9% across all recycling streams accepted, including residential and commercial.
But council also won’t confirm whether any recycling material beyond what’s contaminated is sent to landfill.
Queenstown councillor Matt Wong says it’s hypocritical to support the destination management plan’s goal of carbon zero by 2030, ‘‘but then throw recycling in the landfill’’.
He’s aware the existing recycling and waste processes are ‘‘inadequate’’, and says the infrastructure’s been lagging for a while.
And while he’d like to see a system with more options to make separating material more efficient for households, that’d ‘‘defunct the whole system’’.
‘‘But other councils and places do it, so there’s no reason [we can’t].’’
Fellow councillor Craig ‘Ferg’ Ferguson says he’s aware there are issues and the centre’s under pressure, but ‘‘if [what the whistleblower says] is correct, then I would be concerned’’.
