Failed Kāinga Ora rubbish dumping day on Rotorua’s Wrigley Rd ends in $11,000 bill
The cost to clean up “mountains of rubbish” illegally dumped on Rotorua’s Wrigley Rd has come to more than $11,000.
Rotorua Lakes Council has confirmed more than 7 tonnes of rubbish was removed after a community clean-up day organised by Kāinga Ora went wrong.
Kāinga Ora was picking up the tab after word spread on social media people could dump their rubbish for free on Wrigley Rd.
Residents on the street had been invited via a mail drop to bring their rubbish out on April 4 between 9am and 4pm, and put it in skip bins provided.
Kāinga Ora staff told residents it was okay to place some bigger items beside the skip bins. Those items were not removed, however, by the contractors employed to take away the bins at the end of the day.
The piles of rubbish grew the next day, a Friday, despite contractors returning to remove some. Word then spread over the weekend on local social media pages that Wrigley Rd was the place to dump rubbish for free.
More than 40 tyres, whiteware, lawnmowers, old mattresses, drawers, old bikes, bags of household rubbish and dirty nappies were dumped in three large piles one resident described as “mountains of rubbish”.
Rotorua Lakes Council cleaned up the mess on Monday last week.
The initial $3000-4000 estimate was based on a visual assessment on April 5, council waste and climate change, infrastructure and environmental solutions manager Craig Goodwin said.
However, he said more rubbish was dumped over the weekend and more trips were needed, resulting in a final cost, invoiced to Kāinga Ora, of $11,266.23 including GST.
He said a hook truck, tipper truck and a 5-tonne digger were used to remove more than 7 tonnes of rubbish.
He previously said the incident was “classed as illegal dumping.”
An affected Wrigley Rd resident, who didn’t want her name published for fear of repercussions, said it started as an “awesome initiative” but there were big repercussions with the piles being left on the first day and not being cleared quickly enough.
She said she tried to warn Kāinga Ora on Friday and called several times asking them to come back and finish the clean-up.
She said in her opinion it wasn’t the fault of the rubbish dumpers.
“If you heard of a free dump site, why wouldn’t you dump your 40 tyres there in the middle of the night?”
She said there was seemed to be a need for people to have a free dump site and said perhaps landfill fees were out of reach for some.
She suggested as an incentive for residents to keep their properties clean and prevent illegal dumping, the council could offer a “free dump day” or a half-price week.
The resident said she and another neighbour enjoyed watching the clean-up on Monday last week.
She said her daughter even made a “no dumping please” sign on a piece of cardboard on a stick and waved it around.
“We sat out the front watching them all day, giving them water when they needed it. Our commentary was the best part, we had a couple of beers and turned it into a fun day.”
Free or cheap rubbish days?
Rotorua Lakes Council infrastructure and environment group manager Stavros Michael said the council had no plans to explore free or subsidised dumping because they needed funding.
He said such plans could be expensive, messy and lead to more problems than they solved.
“Currently no councils in New Zealand offer this type of service because, in the past, it has led to issues like people from other districts dumping rubbish in those areas, similar to what happened at Wrigley Rd after it was posted on social media.”
He said people typically did not want a landfill in their district due to environmental concerns and landfilling space was limited and expensive to maintain.
“This is one of the reasons we advocate so strongly for people to minimise the waste they create and recycle more. Currently we transport our waste to the nearest landfill which is 150km away in Tirohia in the Hauraki District, this also results in added haulage costs.”
He said other councils also needed to transport rubbish over long distances.
What Kāinga Ora says
Kāinga Ora Bay of Plenty regional manager Darren Toy acknowledged last week staff had advised residents to put some larger items beside the skips and it appeared those were not removed by the agency’s maintenance partner initially.
He said more loads were picked up on the Friday after calls from concerned residents but more rubbish was dumped over the weekend.
Toy said it was disappointing bringing communities together and supporting tenants to keep their homes free of unwanted goods was taken advantage of.
“It is also disappointing that the same opportunities are now on hold for other Rotorua suburbs. With the number of loads dumped in the last week, we will hopefully see a reduction in the amount of waste dumped inappropriately across other suburbs in Rotorua for some time.”
He previously said Kāinga Ora would pay for Rotorua Lakes Council to remove the rubbish.
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.