Kaibosh

QUEENSTOWN
LAKES
The Queenstown Lakes District
Council and Central Otago District
Council are to partner with two
national agencies to investigate the
uses of wood bio-waste for heating
commercial buildings.
The two councils, the Energy
Efficiency and Conservation
Authority (EECA) and the
Department of Conservation
(DoC) are pooling resources for
a feasibility study around the
collection and processing of waste
wood into pellets or wood chips
locally for the local market.
Queenstown Lakes District
Council’s district forester Briana
Pringle said the product was used in
bio-waste burners which were clean
and highly efficient but currently
users had to bring in bio-fuel from
out-of-town. “We have plenty
of raw material here like wilding
pines, we need to find out if it will
be economical to turn them into a
fuel source and if so, will there be
demand for what is produced?” Ms
Pringle said.
As well as offering advantages
in terms of energy efficiency and
cleanness, bio-waste was potentially
cheaper than coal and oil and could
also offer another option in an
area which has been heavily reliant
on electricity and LPG. Bio-waste
pellet and chip burners also met
the criteria of the Otago Regional
Council’s Air Plan.
Research for the study is already
underway with Ahika Consulting
and the Otago Polytechnic Centre
for Sustainable Practice surveying
local schools and businesses on
their current energy uses and the
potential for them to convert to
wood energy in future. A community
meeting for interested parties would
also be held sometime in February.
Queenstown Lakes District Council media
release
MARLBOROUGH
Marlborough District Council is
proposing to extend the area of
service for its kerbside refuse and
recycling collection. This expansion
of service is designed to increase the
amount of material diverted away
from landfill. Submissions closed on
1 February 2013.
The key aims of this service
expansion are to deliver the
kerbside collection service to up
to a further 400 homes on the
edge of Blenheim, divert up to
52 tonnes of material away from
landfill, improve the efficiency of
collecting recycling materials and
to promote behaviour change at an
individual and community level. The
proposed service would commence
on 1 July 2013.
Marlborough District Council website
PALMERSTON NORTH
UPPER HUTT
On 4 February 2013, Upper Hutt
City Council’s kerbside recycling
collection service changed from a
rates-funded plastic bag service to
a privately operated wheelie bin
service managed through a council
contract.
The new contractor wheelie bin
service is a fortnightly collection,
however, glass ‘only’ is collected
from a 45 litre crate on one week and
paper, plastics and metals (tins/cans)
are collected from a 140 litre wheelie
bin on the alternate week. This
recycling change does not change
the existing rubbish bag collection
service for residential customers.
Upper Hutt City Council media release
Wayne Gray of Palmerston North City Council sorting glass with the new low entry
vehicle glass truck
Palmerston North City Council has introduced four new collection vehicles to its
rubbish and recycling kerbside collection fleet. The new vehicles replace some of
the existing fleet and will reduce the total fleet size. The new additions comprise of
two MANCO purpose built glass collection vehicles and two MANCO purpose built
rubbish collection vehicles.
It is anticipated that the new glass collection vehicles will dramatically improve the
recycling efficiency of the council’s kerbside glass collection to 90 percent recovery
of glass collected. The new glass trucks allow the kerbside colour sort of glass by
a single operator. All the new trucks are low entry vehicles, with left hand drive
operation during collection, and operated by a single operator.
Natasha Simmons, Rubbish & Recycling Asset Engineer, Palmerston North City Council
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