Inside Wellington's Southern Landfill - what really ends up at the dump

Friday, 3 August 2018

The Southern Landfill in its current stage is expected to reach full capacity within five years, and is being expanded.

Wellington's Southern Landfill is expected to reach capacity within five years, and is in the process of being expanded, so what is taking up all the space? Amber-Leigh Woolf reports.

At Wellington's southern landfill, seagulls live the dream as they watch fresh refuse get dumped on a daily basis.

About a quarter of it is the food scraps they are hanging out for.

Sewerage sludge also arrives every morning – about 20 per cent of the landfill's total waste can be described as such.

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It's followed by fresh rubbish, plastic and packaging, all of which is compacted down and covered.

A seagull scans Wellington's southern landfill in the hope of spotting some food scraps.

Plastic milk bottles, shopping bags, yoghurt containers and takeaway packaging spotted about the place give the landfill its colour.

Every day, workers traverse the tip face to collect rubbish that has blown free. Last year, they found an old plastic bag from a grocery store that closed down in the 1970s.

'Obviously it'd had a life in the landfill … but it was still in tact,' waste operations manager Emily Taylor-Hall says.

Wellington's southern landfill, in its current state, is expected to be full within five years.

Landfill operations manager Darren Hoskins says people see landfills as a negative thing. But the southern landfill is doing more than others to divert waste to other places.

'We're doing really well for the amount of materials that we're diverting, and the amount of resources we're using to keep things out of the landfill.'

Some green waste and commercial food waste is diverted into compost operations. The landfill also watches its emissions, Taylor-Hall says.

They collect and destruct gas though an electricity generator, reducing emissions along with their financial liability, she says.

Every day, about 300 people visit the transfer station to dump their unwanted goods – old mattresses, dilapidated furniture, office desks and shelves included.

On a busy day more than 800 vehicles come throuhg.

But staff intervene if there are items that can be salvaged, she says.

'Our transfer station is staffed with a member of our team who engages with residents dropping off waste, to see if any of their items can be recycled or resold in our Tip Shop.'

A small amount of green waste and commercial food waste is diverted into compost at the southern landfill.

Contractor staff who work within the drop-off pit also look to recover items where they can.

BUT IS IT ALL RUBBISH?

Wellington households have been called some of the worst recyclers in New Zealand.

At the southern landfill, 18.5 per cent of what arrives could have been included in kerbside recycling or easily recycled elsewhere.The worst offender is paper.

About $23.5 million has been budgeted over the next 10 years for the landfill's extension. The funding was brought forward because it is expected to reach capacity in five years.

Not all Wellingtonians may realise their sewerage – processed as biosolids – also ends up at the landfill.

Some discarded commuter train carriages remain at the landfill.

Wellington's sewage goes through a 'dewatering' process above Owhiro Valley to remove liquids from solids. Liquids are sent to the Moa Point sewage plant, but the solids get buried at the landfill.

In March, it was found the ratio of rubbish to sewerage was not keeping pace with what Wellington sent down the toilets. A high ratio could make the landfill too sludgy and unstable.

Taylor-Hall says the ratio continued to be a'fine line' that they walked to stay within their consent.

A document known as the Wellington Region Waste Management and Minimisation Plan outlines how city infrastructure may evolve to cope with waste by 2023.

It proposes finding new ways to use the sludge before it gets to the landfill.

By 2020, councils want to have collaborated with utilities company Wellington Water and others to divert biosolids from the southern landfill to be reused, recovered or recycled.

Wellington City Council's Long-Term Plan has pinned $34m for sludge treatment options.

WasteMINZ chief executive Paul Evans says household rubbish is just a fraction of what is heading to landfills across the country.

'The general public, when they think about what rubbish goes to landfill, they think about what they put out and what they put out in their bins and bags,' he says.

'But the rubbish collection is only a component of what goes to landfill. The total amount of [rubbish] put in bins is only 15 to 20 per cent of what goes to landfill. The other 85 to 80 per cent is from the commercial sector and the largest part is from demolition and construction waste.'

WHAT CAN BE RECYCLED IN WELLINGTON

Newspapers and magazines

Egg cartons

Office paper and envelopes

Junk mail

Cereal boxes

Toilet paper rolls

Cardboard boxes, including pizza boxes (but remove pizza scraps and cheese residue)

Brown corrugated cardboard

Drink bottles

Food containers

Cleaning product containers

Plastic trays

Tins and cans

Aluminium drinking cans

Glass bottles and jars (lids removed)

WHAT CAN'T BE RECYCLED

Fly spray

Spray deodorant

Cream cans

Food and liquid

Cloth or clothing

Bottle and jar lids

Wax-coated or lined cartons

Milk and juice cartons

Plastic bags

Polystyrene Bubble wrap

Cling film

Tin foil

Meat trays (polystyrene)

Lawn clippings

Weeds

Broken glass

Ceramics

Drinking glasses and cups

Glass bricks

Light bulbs and fluorescent tubes

Medical and lab glass containers

Mirrors

Pyrex

TV tubes and computer screens

Vases and ornamental glass

Window glass

Sharp objects

Medical syringes

Batteries

Paint and oil

All types of gas bottles/cylinders