This is the ‘cell’ where all of our rubbish is dumped from the wheelie bin trucks. All of our rubbish is dumped here.
Do you sort the rubbish into piles for recycling? The rubbish from wheelie bins and skips gets dumped straight into the cell. People who bring rubbish themselves to the recycling centre can sort their rubbish into the separate bins.
How much rubbish can one truck hold? How many wheelie bins? He wasn’t sure but there is a compactor inside the truck that squashes the rubbish tight. If a truck gets full halfway round the collection route the driver empties it at the landfill and goes back to get the rest.
What will happen if cold ash is put into a plastic bag before it goes in the wheelie bin, will it break down? – Nothing if the ash is cold, but if the ash is hot it can cause a fire in the back of the wheelie bin truck. When the hot ashes get mixed up with paper and air it can sometimes start a fire, so it is important to make sure the ashes have cooled for a few days before putting them into the wheelie bin.
How do you move the rubbish around in the dump? With a large compacting dozer.
How much rubbish comes into the landfill each month? 500 tonnes of rubbish comes in each month. For each tonne of rubbish the council have to pay the government $10 which is then given to people who are researching ways to recycle and reduce waste in a way that is better for our environment.
How much rubbish can fit in one landfill? It depends on the size of the landfill. We are building a mountain here so it will never get full it will only get higher. Most landfills are designed to last about 50 years.
How should people dispose of their old computers or appliances? Fridges, oven, microwaves and washing machines can be taken to the landfill. Computers are more tricky to dispose of because the parts in a computer that can be recycled are all in the middle of the computer. Once a year a big container gets filled with old computer equipment and sent overseas for destruction and recycling. Last year the ship went to Korea.
A lot of the materials to be recycled gets packed up into containers and shipped up to recycling plants in Auckland.
Metal also gets picked up and taken to Dunedin.
Where does the rubbish go after it has been at the dump? The rubbish that is in the landfill cell gets buried and they plant grass on top of it. Tyres are taken away to be re-used by farmers for silage pits. Metal is collected by the metal recyclers who crush it small and send it overseas for recycling. Cars are crushed small and taken away by the wreckers. Batteries are also collected, and so are hazardous wastes such as explosives and chemicals and contaminated helicopter fuel. Old fridges get taken away, and so do old gas bottles. Everything that is sorted can be recycled. The managers of the landfill encourage safe dumping and recycling. They would like to see the amount of waste reduced.
Do you have an area where people can recycle if they want to? Yes, we have a new recycling bin which we have had for about a year. People need to bring their recycling here themselves.
Do you have a place where people can leave things to be re-used? No, not yet, but they are considering doing something like that.
How do you know if something can be recycled? You can find a symbol on the bottom and it might have a number on it.
How many years does it take for cardboard to break down? Cardboard and paper are in extremely high demand. Carter Holt Harvey take as much card and paper as they can for recycling. It gets collected up and shipped off to them. There is a lot of money in the recycling of cardboard and paper.
Are we likely to get recycling bins in Lawrence? Yes, possibly in about a year. The council are looking into it now.
What do you do with the green waste? It is fed into a large chipping machine which makes it into chip that is spread over the top of the landfill when it is about to have grass planted. It is important not to mix any rubbish with your green waste as it does not compost. People are charged more to drop off green waste, because is omits methane gas, which the government are going to tax. The council would prefer people to compost their own green waste at home where possible.
This locked shed is used for keeping hazardous waste while they wait for it to be collected by people who can dispose of it properly. When we visited it had some explosives and some contaminated helicopter fuel in it.
How should paint cans or containers be disposed of? If metal cans are empty of all paint they can go to the metals section of the landfill for recycling. Paint must be dried up because they don’t like any liquid to be dumped, because it seeps into the ground and finds it way out to the river and contaminates/pollutes the water. Left over paint can either be painted onto things that are going to the rubbish or they can be disposed of at Resene or Placemakers in Dunedin.
How long before this landfill is filled? In August 2023 the license for this landfill will expire and it will be very tricky to meet the regulations to get a new consent for this same landfill.
Where will the next landfill be? That is hard to answer, it would depend on consent. We could end up with a transfer station where all the rubbish came to and was compacted into crates and sent to larger landfills in Dunedin or Invercargill.
How big do the landfills have to be? As big as it needs to be.
How much does it cost to run a landfill? About 1 million dollars per year. That includes the collection trucks and wages.
Is it a bad idea for us to tie our rubbish into plastic shopping bags before we put them in the wheelie bin? – It doesn’t really matter because the seagulls rip open the plastic bags anyway. Rubbish at a landfill doesn’t breakdown as well as other rubbish because when it is buried it doesn’t have air to help the break down process.
How can we recycle plastic bags? We are better to reduce the number of plastic bags that we get, by using re-useable shopping bags. We should also think very carefully about the things that we buy. Think about whether it is for the short term or long term, are we likely to throw it out?
The Mt Cooee landfill is one of the cheapest legal landfills in all of the country.
We don’t say dump anymore – it is a disposal facility.
Balclutha Salvation Army Shop
We also visited the Balclutha Salvation Army Shop to see how they re-use unwanted items so that they don't become rubbish and so that they can help the community by raising money and by helping people in need. It was also a fascinating visit.
The money that is raised all goes back into the community into charities. They also help people who have nothing as result of fire or flood etc
Everyone works at the Salvation Army volunteers, none of them get paid. They are doing it to give back to the community.
Between 200 and 400 items of clothing are sold EVERY DAY at the Balclutha Salvation Army.
There are no resources or man-power to wash the items that come in so they rely on the people who are donating to have cleaned them first.
Everything that is donated is used. The try hard not to put anything in the landfill. If there are clothing items that can not be used on the shelves they cut them up into rags and sell them to the local businesses. They recycle the buttons and zips off these items first so that they can be sold. 
People drop used stuff off to the Salvation Army shop all day, every day for reuse: rugby boots, cutlery, teddies, clothes, hats, shoes, jewellery, cups, plates, books, videos, DVD’s, singlets, hankies, toys, ornaments, photo frames, radios, electrical appliances, jars, wallets, handbags, puzzles, pens and pencils, watches, postcards, telephones, prams, sheets, blankets, beds, furniture, mattresses, cellphones, soap, baby clothes, wool, knitting calendars, mats etc
Everything was very cheap because it had all been donated. They keep things cheap so that people can buy more. If people have no money the Salvation Army give them things that they need for free.
All items are colour coded, so when they have been in the shop for a while, they package up all labels with that colour tag and send them off to a store in Milton, Invercargill or Dunedin, so that they can be sold there.
The Salvation Army is a great place to take things to be re-used because everybody benefits, the landfill, the people buying the clothes and the community groups who receive the profits.
If we have things at our houses that we are no longer using then we should drop it off to the Salvation Army instead of throwing it in the rubbish.
Our trip was amazing and we really did learn a lot about where our rubbish goes, how we can begin recycling and how we can begin reducing by donating to the Salvation Army. It was a great trip.
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