Council will be providing extra refuse, recycling and waste services over the busy Christmas/New Year period.

The festive summer period means more people and more rubbish.

To meet the demand Council has increased its waste management services over the busiest time.

The landfill will be closed on the public holidays of Christmas Day (Tuesday December 25) and Boxing Day (December 26) and on the new year public holidays of Tuesday January 1 and 2.

To ensure people have plenty of opportunity to take their waste to the landfill it will be open for an additional two hours, from 9-5pm  over the weekends of Saturday December 22 and Sunday December 23, Saturday December 29 and Sunday December 30 and Saturday January 5 and Sunday January 6.

There will also be changes to the refuse collection due to the usual collection falling on public holidays.

In Wairoa the refuse collection will take place a day earlier on Monday December 24 and Monday December 31.

The Mahia refuse collection will continue every Monday and also include four additional collection days on Friday December 21, Friday December 28, Friday January 4 and Friday January 11.

There will also be a temporary recycling centre at Kaiwaitau Road, Mahia from 9-12 on the following days- Saturday December 22, Monday December 24, Thursday December 27, Friday December 28 and Monday December 31, Thursday January 3,Friday January 4.

The Wairoa Recycling will take place a day later on Thursday December 27 and Thursday January 3, again because of public holidays.

Mayor Craig Little encourages people to take advantage of these additional services, and not to fly-dump rubbish around the district.

“It costs council in excess of $20,000 a year to clean up illegally dumped rubbish.

“We are asking our community to be our eyes and ears and report any suspicious rubbish-dumping

behaviour to council or the police,” he said.

“Fly tipping or fly dumping is the illegal and deliberate dumping of rubbish on public property. It’s

an offence that can carry fines of up to $1500. 

“Fly dumping is a very expensive method of dumping rubbish, which is ironic given that we operate one of the cheapest landfills in the country.

“Everyone is so environmentally conscious these days I can’t believe fly dumping is even considered as an option.

 “Some of the illegally dumped rubbish is also recyclable material like plastic and glass bottles. We operate a free recycling drop-off, so there should be no need to see this stuff dumped around the district.”

“If you do see people fly tipping, please make a note of the vehicle type, colour and registration

and a description of the person fly tipping. Report the incident to us even if you were not able to take these details.

“Using your smart phones to take photos of this type of behaviour will help us when we seek to prosecute people breaking the law by fly tipping.”

19 December 2018

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