Holidaymakers leave mountain of glass in Coromandel

Whitianga transfer station overflowed with bottles. Photo/Debbie Harrison

A mountain of glass left over from holidaymakers is creating a headache for Coromandel locals tasked with cleaning it up.

The Whangamata, Whitianga, Whangapoua and Matarangi areas have been identified as the busiest in New Zealand for waste collectors over the festive period.

The beach destinations attracted thousands of people every summer — and with them comes the problem associated with more rubbish and more bottles as the heat prompts thirsty holidaymakers to drink more.

Auckland woman Debbie Harrison saw that for herself last Monday when she went to drop off her recycling at the Whitianga depot.

Harrison was shocked to be confronted with a sea of bottles, which had spilled out from the skip bins.

Harrison said the bins had become so full that people just had to pile their bottles up on top of each other until the centre became overloaded.

Grahame Christian of Smart Environmental, which has contracts with 18 different councils around New Zealand, said tourists produced "exponentially" more rubbish and recycling during their whirlwind summer holiday.

Christian said while Harrison's situation was pretty normal for peak period on the Coromandel.

"Everyone talks about a peak period whether it's Whangarei or northern areas of Rodney, but Thames-Coromandel is just ballistic. It's exponentially the heaviest increase in population in the country including Queenstown and Wanaka as well."

The critical issues were not only the "massive increase in headcount" — which if spread across the whole peninsula could be manageable.

Instead, holidaymakers flocked to the eastern coast to fill up the homes of absentee owners. Those homes made up about 50 per cent of all households, he said.

According to council figures, for most of the year the Thames-Coromandel District population sits around 27,500 (about 3500 in Whangamata).

However, at its peak last summer, that swelled to a monster 126,298 people with 28,050 of those based in Whangamata alone.

This summer was Whangamata's busiest and possibly exacerbated by a beer shortage last month, when Lion Breweries announced it was struggling to keep up with the demand.

"It's a good problem to have but it does have its compounding issues around knowing how to resource it and sometimes you don't have enough resource," Christian said.

Christian estimated recycling and waste during the festive period usually tripled or quadrupled.

"When we started these contracts and relaid out the transfer stations they were designed to handle a certain volume, but the volume far exceeds that now."

While the Coromandel was the busiest district, Tasman region would be the next most popular spot, followed by Queenstown and Wanaka, he said.

Christian, who is also on the Waste Management Institute of New Zealand board, said Kiwis did care about the environment and recycling but more was needed to target the producers of goods who were more often using plastic as wrapping.