Charity shops predict dumping
OAMARU charity shops are concerned a rise in fees to dump rubbish will mean the public will use them as a rubbish tip instead.
On April 22 Oamaru’s landfill will close and a new refuse transfer station in Oamaru’s North End will open.
The transfer station, managed by Waste Management NZ, will have a new fee schedule.
The new fees for general waste will be based on a fee of $228.30 per tonne, compared with the present cost of $160 per tonne, with a minimum charge of $22.50 (the current minimum charge is $20).
The cost of dumping green waste will increase from $45 per tonne to $90 per tonne, and the minimum charge will go up from $10 to $12.50.
Salvation Army North End Family Store manager Leighton McLay said he expected some people would start bringing rubbish rather than items suitable for charitable sale to the store as a result of the new transfer station fees.
He hoped people would not resort to this but expected his organisation would have to absorb the cost of disposing of extra rubbish.
That expenditure would mean less charitable services provided for North Otago, he said.
‘‘We do a truckload of rubbish a week, if not two. A normal truckload a week has been about the $80 mark and that looks like it will go up 35%.
‘‘It will go up to $120, which doesn’t seem huge but when you do 50 or 60 rubbish runs a year it adds up.’’
The manager of the St Vincent de Paul Society store in Oamaru, Jeanette Verheyen, said all the charity shops in town could expect to see a change to what was donated.
She also wondered if people would be too lazy to drive across town to the new transfer station in the North End industrial precinct.
‘‘The town needs to look at separate bins . . . kerbside recycling.’’
Waitaki District councillor Colin Wollstein said the risk of people dumping trash around the town as the result of increasing fees had been discussed by councillors.
With any rise in rubbish charges there would be more temptation for people to do ‘‘flytipping’’, and there was always an element of society who would do anything to save money, he said.
The council was limited in what it could do to stop rubbish dumping outside the new refuse station council. However, if council staff could trace rubbish back to offenders , they could be fined $200 each.
Waste Management NZ spokesman Gareth James said the fees were costeffective and sustainable.
‘‘They are slightly below earlier estimates provided to the community by the council and are in line with rates charged at other similar refuse stations using modern landfill disposal facilities, including those in Christchurch and Ashburton.’’
He said waste that could not be recycled would be trucked to landfills within Otago but outside North Otago. Waste Management declined to specify exactly where the rubbish would go.