An abundance of bottles and a mountain of paper and cardboard will greet Greensky recycling trucks when they resume their rounds across Hastings district this week.
Glass and paper collections will begin from on normal collection days although that won’t include plastic or cans as they still require manual sorting and as yet there’s no market for plastic.
People are being asked to place these items in the normal orange refuse bag, not to store them unless they have a safe space to do so.
It will have been five weeks since the council canned its recycling pick-ups and closed its refuse stations for the lockdown period. Over that time Hastings residents have piled up the packaging and newspapers and judging by supermarket sales, alcohol consumption went through the roof.
Hastings recycling facilities remain closed to the public, although in preparation for re-opening new
EFTPOS machines are being added to keep to social distancing requirements.
According to the council, bottles and glass will go straight to an Auckland outlet “which will take all the glass we can deliver” while Hawk Packaging is “desperate for any paper and cardboard”.
Plastic cannot be processed currently because of the need for manual sorting. Dealing with plastic continues to presents a dilemma as the export market has faded and warehouses around the country are stacked high with bales that have nowhere to go.
Delivery of the new black recycling crates will resume during Level 3.New recycling company Smart Environmentals has had its contract to take over the recycling round put back from May 1 to June 1.
Napier City has asked ratepayers to hold off if possible on putting out glass on usual rubbish collection days, as it was going to straight to landfill.
I love Bay Buzz, more so when reports cover more than just Napier and Hasting! HB does stretch North and South.
On the other hand, hate it when national media can name individual towns and cities for a list of events, but Napier or Havelock North become Hawkes Bay
Great to know that glass and paper recycling will start again this week but it is worrying that plastic “recycling” is simply piling up with a lack of market(s). Back to landfill seems a retrograde step!
Your comment about alcohol consumption going through the roof needs further expansion and background I feel. I am sure that supermarket sales of beer and wine have increased during the lockdown due to the effective duopoly on sales they have been handed. Since the two day panic buying rush immediately prior to the lockdown I suspect that spirit and RTD sales have plummeted with fine wine and other Liquor retailers limited to online small volume sales and then only in the last couple of weeks. Craft brewers/ distillers and boutique winemakers without access to supermarket shelves may well have had virtually zero sales in this period especially if their mail order list was weak. As a result the effect of lockdown on total alcohol sales is somewhat uncertain.
A subject for another article?
It is also great to have these regular Bay Buzz updates appearing. Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Ian