Team leader Kellie Ranginui has worked in every role at the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre. Photo / Laurel Stowell
Dirty nappies, cigarette butts stuffed into cans, the needles of drug users - some of what comes into the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre has a high yuk factor.
"It's definitely not the cleanest job in the world. I do go home and have a good scrub," team leader Kellie Ranginui said.
It's not the easiest job either. The staff sometimes get abuse, when they refuse to take items such as polystyrene. Some have even been hit.
"One of our key roles is educating the public, and we constantly get abused. People come down here because they don't want to pay [for disposal to landfill]. We get the backlash. It's very stressful."
When Budget Waste stopped collecting recyclables at the kerbside the centre had to send 10 fadges of rubbish a day to landfill.
Staff are paid more than the minimum wage, but they're constantly checking that product gets into the right bins and moving it through. They do monthly runs to collect paper from schools and recyclables from council institutions and from the elderly.
They work shifts. One person is behind a closed gate, on their own, in the dark every night. They have to keep a messy place tidy and safe, and take money from customers disposing of items like computers, television sets and green waste.
"You definitely have to be passionate about what you do and the kaupapa you are here to support," Ranginui said.
One of her roles is to find new staff - and she says there's a high turnover. Advertising for full-time roles is done through Trade Me.
The place is busy, with nearly 800 cars on a Saturday disposing of "product". Ranginui says it needs to expand.
"It's just the amount of product that comes through. It's so much that we need more space."
The centre is caught in the pincers of an increasingly throwaway society, wildly fluctuating prices for materials and the increasing drive to be sustainable.
It gets $175,000 from Whanganui District Council this year and needs about $340,000 to run. New manager Dale Cobb thinks it will make it.
He started in the job in March, succeeding Ramari Te Uamairangi and a period of months when Whanganui councillor Rob Vinsen was interim manager. Previously Cobb has been the CEO of Wanganui Rugby, the golf director at Whanganui's Belmont Links, and an operations manager for Tranzit Coachlines.
He's liked entering a field where he can make a difference.
"It's just so rewarding to be surrounded by people who have similar outcomes. Everyone comes here for the same reason, and that's just really to preserve the future."
He has an administrator, three permanent staff and up to six casual staff.
For machinery there is one WRRC forklift, with two others on site owned by fibre recycler Oji. There's also a machine with a bucket, used to compact green waste and load glass onto trucks.
The charitable trust that runs the centre is 49 per cent owned by Whanganui District Council and 49 per cent owned by Tupoho Whānau Trust, with the remaining 2 per cent ownership by Sustainable Whanganui.
The large central city property includes the former Wanganui City Prison building and is landbanked for settlement of Treaty claims. The Tupoho trust leases it and WRRC subleases.
WRRC is contracted by Whanganui District Council to take and sort recyclable material. For the last eight years the council has paid $150,000 a year for the service. The amount rose this year, to $175,000.
"We are pretty proud here as a trust that we have been able to keep that cost down for the ratepayer," Vinsen said.
It costs about $340,000 a year to run the service. The rest of the money comes from sales of recyclable material and subleasing parts of the property to Japanese company Oji Fibre Solutions, Sustainable Whanganui and midriver iwi Tamaupoko.
The centre has been proud to send away very well sorted and high grade materials.
It's getting busier, with about 400 cars on a weekday, and nearly 800 on a Saturday.
Health and safety is a priority. A row of recycled plastic bollards have been put in place to protect people dropping off product, after a car accelerated toward the disposal windows on May 4. No one was hurt, but it could be worse next time.
A lot of throwaways are plastic. The centre has markets only for the plastics with the numbers 1, 2 and 5 inside the recycling triangle. It is stockpiling the others, hoping that markets will emerge.
Ranginui believes this is likely. A Melbourne company, Replas, is converting any kind of waste plastic into new products like furniture and matting. And Manawatū District Council is hoping to set up a plastic reprocessing centre in Feilding, taking product from across the lower North Island.
PLASTIC NO 1
+ PET
+ from clear plastic water and soft drink bottles
+ goes to Flight Plastics in Petone
+ used to make more clear plastic packaging, carpet fibre, polar fleece
PLASTIC NO 2
+ HDPE
+ from milk bottles, cleaning product containers
+ goes to Aotearoa New Zealand Made in Palmerston North
+ used to make rubbish bags, or onsold as granules to make pipes, bins
PLASTIC NO 5
+ polypropylene
+ from some takeaway containers, icecream containers, yoghurt containers
+ goes to Aotearoa New Zealand Made in Palmerston North
+ processed to granules used to make the bar chairs used in concrete placement.
GLASS
+ trucked to O-I Glass New Zealand, in Auckland
+ one truckload weighs 30-34 tonnes
+ trucked to Auckland by RMD Transport
+ can be added to new cullet and remelted indefinitely
+ fetches the best price of all WRRC product
+ 4000 tonnes glass used every year in Whanganui
+ only 1100 tonnes recycled at WRRC
+ centre could easily handle more
+ centre looking to source glass direct from hopsitality places
GREEN WASTE
+ arriving in increasing amounts
+ costs from $8 for a car boot load, through to $60 for a large trailer
+ sold to lower North Island business Tree Munchers Ltd
+ shredded on site, with Tree Munchers machinery
+ then trucked to other centres for composting
+ centre open to considering more local uses
PAPER AND CARDBOARD
+ baled in shed on-site by Oji Fibre Solutions
+ trucked to Oji plant in Auckland
+ made into packaging and egg cartons
+ used to sell for $100 a tonne, now about $300 a tonne
ALUMINIUM CANS
+ three or four fadges of cans collected daily
+ picked up by Wanganui Car Dump & Scrap Metal Recycling Centre
+ baled and exported
STEEL CANS
+ about five fadges collected daily
+ picked up by Wanganui Car Dump & Scrap Metal Recycling Centre
+ 44 tonnes collected so far this year
+ baled and exported
SCRAP METAL
+ picked up by Wanganui Car Dump & Scrap Metal Recycling Centre
+ also exported
E-WASTE
+ costs $10 to $20 to leave items
+ TVs printers put onto pallets
+ goes to RemarkIT in Upper Hutt
+ devices either refurbished, or materials reused
+ prices paid only just cover cost
WASTE OIL
+ cost 50c per litre to leave
MIXED RUBBISH, IN BAG
+ cost $4 to leave
The offenders are believed to be part of a wider crime spree after a Whanganui burglary.