Committee urges planning go-ahead of rubbish station

Press, 2 February 1982, Page 6

Committee urges planning go-ahead of rubbish station

Planning for the construction of a second metropolitan refuse station, to be built in Ruru Road, should proceed without delay, said the Christchurch City Council’s resource recovery committee yesterday. The recommendation came as councillors learned that earlier projections for filling of the Bexley tip by the end of 1983 were still accurate. Labour councillors have promised to close the tip by then, without. any more dumping north of Estuary Drain, and are pinning their hopes on a quick opening of the • disputed metropolitan landfill, site in. Waimairi County. ■■ Although the ' original metropolitan collection and disposal plan called for three main refuse stations, councillors said they would only support the provision of three sites. Whether a full-fledged rubbish station would occupy the

third site, in northern Christchurch, remained an open question. The Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee chairman, Cr H. A. Clark, said he supported only two main stations. Public opinion against a third should be acknowledged, he said, even through town-planning procedures to establish a third site should at least go ahead. A third site might never need a full compaction station but might be used for other purposes, such as rubbish recycling. The City Engineer, Mr P. G' Scoular, said that some standby equipment might be needed in the Ruru Road station if a third station was rejected, since the second station would have to be able to take over the entire metropolitan area load if the Parkhouse Road station’s equipment ever needed maintenance requiring a plant shutdown.

“What kind of station do we design, a station or a station and a bit?” he asked. Cr Helen Garrett said the original concept of three transfer stations was good. She said that Cr Clark was scuttling his own committee, and asked why he did not resign. Cr Clark said that the S7OM needed to build the original metropolitan scheme would leave no capital for investment in alternative methods of rubbish disposal, such as the development of refuse-derived fuels or the production of methane gas from rubbish. “We are trying to look at a changing technology,” he said. The spending of too much money on three stations would in some ways negate the City Council’s new recycling scheme, which relied on people sorting their rubbish at home and putting it out for collection at the gate. "People can have the option, of not taking their rubbish to the station if they wish,” Qr Clark said.

Recycling depot The committee said that a traffic system should be devised which would ensure that vehicles passed through at least part of the Bexley recycling depot before going on to the tip face with rubbish, after the face is transferred next month. So far the depot has not been doing much business, even when materials from household collections are ' added to its activities. From November 22 to January 20, receipts from materials at the centre were only $3065, compared with running costs of $50,041. Those running costs would have been $28,155 higher without Government-paid temporary labour, and that source of labour funds will end next month. From then full costs will come from city, ratepayers. The council has also lost its market for recycled newspapers. Mr H. E. Surtees, the streetworks engineer, said that ideas for using newspapers were being studied, but it would be unrealistic to expect, any early or cheap solution to the problem. The council will ask the Government to help come up with ideas for getting rid of newspapers.