Waikato Business News July/August 2020

WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS July/August 2020
21
Recycling to the fore in Hamilton’s
high-tech waste overhaul
Hamilton City Council wants to increase the amount of waste
diverted from landfill by 50 percent within three years, and
EnviroWaste is playing a central role in making this possible.
EnviroWaste is raising
the bar on everything
waste-related, from
how we collect waste, to how
it’s treated, and even how residents
feel about what they
throw away.
Before submitting a
bid for the Hamilton contract,
the EnviroWaste team
spent weeks on modelling,
data analysis and budgeting
to determine the viability
of the project.
When they won the contract
in 2018, they then
swung their attention from the
conceptual to the concrete.
Groups were set up to drive,
inform and oversee the design
of a collection and disposal/
recycling programme to meet
Hamilton city’s needs.
Setting up the new collection
service has been a
huge undertaking, requiring
them to source and deliver
approximately 180,000 bins
to 59,000 households; establish
a new fleet of collection
trucks with a preference for
electric vehicles; and recruit
and train more than 30 drivers.
But recovery and recycling
are where EnviroWaste
are truly expanding their
capacity. Having owned one
transfer station in Hamilton,
they are now responsible for
two, and will also take over
management and operation of
the Hamilton Organic Centre
from July 2021.
With challenging targets
for diverting waste from
landfill, they needed a bold
strategy to make their sites as
efficient and effective as possible.
They considered every
aspect of the operation, from
purpose to plant, and then
invested millions of dollars in
new buildings, staff, machinery
and equipment.
The first site EnviroWaste
targeted was their transfer
station at the end of Sunshine
Avenue, between the railway
and Te Rapa Racecourse.
The site is undergoing dramatic
redevelopment including
the construction of a new
$10m Material Recovery
Facility (MRF).
The MRF will sort and
bale around 8,000 tonnes of
paper, cardboard, plastic and
metals from local kerbside
collections and commercial
operators each year.
A key feature of the new
Hamilton MRF is an education
room that overlooks the
main floor, where visitors
can observe the operation and
team at work. People will
understand, many perhaps for
the first time, that the items
they put in their recycling bin
are seen, touched and sorted
by fellow humans.
The Sunshine Avenue
transfer station will also
include new access roads,
a truck wash, automatic
weighbridges and electrical
charging stations for their
collection trucks and light
passenger vehicles. The site
has been converted to deal
exclusively with compacted
commercial waste, leaving
the council-owned site in Lincoln
Street for domestic and
loose building waste that has
landfill diversion potential.
The Lincoln Street transfer
station will be converted into
a Recovery Park and redeveloped
to provide more options
for re-use and recycling, and
safer access which will be
aided by redirecting truckloads
of commercial waste to
Sunshine Avenue.
In addition to this, EnviroWaste
has partnered with
Habitat for Humanity, which
runs two ReStore outlets in
Hamilton. The charity will
take over the recycling store
at the Lincoln Street site,
selling clothing, household
items and demolition materials
dropped off by residents
and recovered from kerbside
collections.
With compostable material
making up so much of the
waste stream, EnviroWaste’s
Power and Resource Recovery
Centre at Hampton Downs is
key to reducing landfill. Their
organics processing facility
at this site has been upgraded
and expanded to handle up
to 30,000 tonnes of organic
material a year - a huge leap
from the 4,000 tonnes it
processed in 2015. Importantly,
the upgrade enables
composting to be shifted from
the Hamilton Organic Centre,
resolving past issues with
noise, odour and run-off.
Compost from the Hampton
Downs facility will be
returned to the food cycle via
orchards, farms and gardens,
including a community garden
at the organic centre.
A 2017 waste audit
showed almost half the
contents of household rubbish
bags were compostable.
With the introduction of
separate recycling bins, a
food waste collection and
more recycling options, we
expect a meaningful reduction
in residual waste.
EnviroWaste is impressed
by Hamilton City Council’s
leap of faith to invest
in new equipment, plant and
people – moving beyond
a “haul and bury” system
to focus on re-use.
EnviroWaste is partner
of choice for more than 21
New Zealand councils, and
the Hamilton waste management
project is their
most ambitious to date.
To meet the challenges of
rolling out a complete and
cost-effective solution for
reducing, re-using and recycling
waste, EnviroWaste
has integrated new state-ofthe-art
processes coupled
with community initiatives
that are proving successful
in other regions around
the country.
- Supplied copy
Tim Macindoe
MP for Hamilton West
543 Te Rapa Road, Hamilton
07 850 6262
timmacindoe.national.org.nz
macindoe.office@parliament.govt.nz
Funded by the
Parliamentary Service.
Authorised by Tim
Macindoe MP,
Parliament Buildings,
Wellington.
COMMERCIAL WASTE AND
RECYCLING SOLUTIONS
We offer a range of collection services for businesses of all sizes.
• Front load bins, gantry skip bins and huka bins
• For general waste, recyclables, organics, clean fill and hard fill
• Schedules and bin sizes to meet your specific needs
For more information give us a call on 0800 240 120 or visit www.envirowaste.co.nz