Kerbside recycling collections in Wanaka have been running very successfully since Septmber 2005. A massive thanks needs to go out to all the residents of Wanaka who regularly use this service, we are currently diverting 34% by weight and 56% by volume of waste resource put out on kerbside from the landfill. This service covers Wanaka, Albert Town, Hawea, Hawea Flat and Makarora.

 

To operate the Kerbside collections, Wanaka Wastebusters have two custom trucks and trailers. Both trucks work in a very straight forward way. The trailers hold all the glass, plastic and metal items, whilst the trucks have two separate holders, one for paper and the other for cardboard.

For our service to run as smooth as possible there are a few guidelines we have put in place to help our runners and sorters as much as possible.
 

QLDC Black Kerbside Bin

If you want to get involved with Kerbside recycling then the first thing you need to do is a get a QLDC black Kerbside bin. To get one of these you need to get in touch with QLDC, just give them a call on 443 0024. The black bins can only be ordered by the property owner so if you are renting in the Wanaka area please get in touch with your landlord or agent and ask them to go through the process for you. Once you have spoken to the council they will tell Wanaka Wastebusters that you are coming to collect it from them. You will need to pay a fee of $15 for each bin and you can find Wastebusters on the corner of Ballentyne and Riverbank Roads. Dead easy. So now you need to know what goes inside them. The black bin holds all of the glass, plastic and metal items. Paper should be placed inside a tied plastic bag and the cardboard should be flattened and tied or taped together, small items of cardboard can also be placed inside a plastic bag if you wish.
 

Look for the recycling logo on your plastic product and check that it has a number 1 or 2 inside it, we can only collect plastics 1 & 2. If you leave any other plastics in the bin we will either spot it at the kerbside, leaving it for you to dispose of, or it will be sorted on the sorting line later. As you can imagine removing non recyclable items from the collected material is an expensive and time consuming operation so the more you do for us at home the happier we are. Once you've washed your plastic can we ask you to squash it as much as possible, there will be more room in your bins for more recyclables and our trailer doesn't get as full as fast.

 

We will pick up any unbroken glass bottles and jars. Unfortunately we cannot collect any glassware such as wine glasses or window glass. These items are made from a different type of glass to the bottles and jars. As with the plastics can you please wash them thoroughly but this time don't try to squash them, you may have noticed that glass doesn't squash too well. You may have heard lots of different stories about what happens to the glass once we have collected it, well if you want to know the full story have a read of the glass mountain report which was recently commisioned. If you only want to see Mount Glass itself just drive down to the corner of Ballantyne and Riverbank Roads, you can't miss it. If your glass doesn't fit in your black bin then can you please place it in a hard crate rather than a cardboard box next to your black bin. If you leave it in a cardboard box and it rains then the chance of the bottom falling out of it when we try and move it into the trailer is fairly high. The bottles will smash when they hit the floor and I'm sure you'll agree with us that this isn't the best thing to be happening on our roads. We will make every effort to clean up any breakages that happen but it takes up lots of time. As you can imagine there are lots of safety issues with us picking up a plastic bags holding glass, so please don't leave glass for us in plastic bags. If you consistently fill your one black bin then it could be time to order another one.
 

Aluminium and steel cans should be washed and squashed then placed within the black bin.
 

Wanaka can be a very windy place at times so a securely tied plastic bag full of paper only will help us get it in the truck rather than down the street and in your garden. Pleaser remember to keep your paper and card in separate packages as they are placed in different containers in the truck, as always you doing a little extra at home will save us lots of time on the street and on the sorting line. Please place your bag on top or next to the black crate.
 

Please squash all of your cardboard boxes as flat as possible and tie them together securely. If the boxes aren't squashed then the truck fills up really fast and we have to make a return to base to unload, or take lots of extra time on the street collapsing the boxes ourselves. Can you try to keep the pieces of card down to a reasonable size, just a little bigger than the crate. As with the paper it is important to secure the card together to stop it blowing away on windy days. We want to keep Wanaka as litter free os possible. Place your bundle of card on or next to the crate.
 

Once the trucks return from doing the Kerbside collections all the collected materials need to be sorted into their different types. The trailers which hold all the items that you place in the black crate are emptied into a large loading bay. A front end loader is used to place this material into a hopper which feeds the material onto a conveyor belt. The materials are then separated by hand¹ into the following types:

		Plastics - clear pop bottles
		Coloured plastics, again mostly pop bottles
		Plastics - milk, cream and some fruit juice bottles mainly
		White janitorial, washing up liquid, detergent bottles etc.
		Coloured janitorial, washing up liquid, detergent bottles etc.
		Aluminium cans, drinks mostly
		Steel cans, baked beans tins, soup etc.

Why do we separate the materials like this? Well the answer to this is fairly simple, that is how the people we sell them to like to receive them. Each of these different categories is worth different amounts so we keep like with like.

Once the materials have been separated they are kept in large wool sacks², or fadges, until there is sufficient material to make a bail. Each fadge holds approx 1m³ of material. So what is a bail of material? We have a fairly large compressor³ which squashes all of the cardboard, paper, plastic and metal as much as possible. It's amazing to see how much the bailer can compress items, it takes 36 fadges of empty milk bottles to make one 1m³ bail! Once the bails have been made they are stored⁴ in our yard until we have enough to make it worthwhile to have them taken to the next step in the recycling process.