KEY POINTS:
A new recycling system for Auckland and Manukau has led to job losses for two collection companies and the end of financial support for an Auckland children's charity.
From Monday, Paper Chase and Street Smart will no longer collect the two cities' residential recycling, creating employment uncertainty for about 60 workers.
Paper Chase, operated by Carter Holt Harvey Fullcircle, will seek to relocate many of its owner-drivers and subcontractors to other areas of operation.
The company has used 10 trucks for the residential collections across Auckland City and Manukau, each with at least three workers, including drivers.
Fullcircle manager James Flexman said the new service providers would use only a quarter of the number of staff that Paper Chase and Street Smart employed at the moment.
"We use a manual process and they [the new operators] use an automatic process," he said.
Paper Chase truck driver Brett Crosby, who is contracted by Carter Holt Harvey, said the staff were told about the redundancies around six months ago.
"All these guys [on his truck] are unemployed come Monday," he told the Weekend Herald as the team did a final run in Howick yesterday.
Crosby said the past few weeks had been quieter as residents began to use the new wheelie bins.
The Children's Home United Council, which owns the Paper Chase brand, receive payment from Fullcircle for every tonne of paper collected.
Flexman said the charity, now in its 50th year, would effectively lose all its funding. "I'm told we are the only lasting contributors to the charity."
The charity told the Weekend Herald they would not comment until next week.
Street Smart will cease to collect Auckland and Manukau Cities' glass and plastic and as a result several staff will face unemployment. Chief executive Matthew Nant said the company would try to redeploy waged staff into other areas of operation.
He said the company was still finalising employment arrangements but about 30 to 40 staff might be jobless.
The company still operates in Papakura and Rodney, as well as other areas across the country, and will continue to do commercial and industrial collections in Auckland and Manukau.
Theiss Services last year won the contract to collect recycling in Auckland City and Enviroway will now collect Manukau City's recycling.
Glass, plastics, metals and paper will now be taken to the new materials recovery facility in Onehunga.
Operated by Australian recycling company Visy, the facility will be able to recycle plastics graded one to seven and Tetra Pak cartons for the first time in the country.
Residents have had 150,000 new 240-litre wheelie bins delivered to replace the old small crates.
The Auckland City Council's website says the new service will "make recycling safer, cleaner and more efficient by diverting more recycling material away from landfills".
The council says the crates were difficult for people to carry and rubbish would often blow out of the shallow bin.
The new bins can carry more and there is no need to separate plastic and paper.
