Pack It Up: City Hall Seriously Charges Green For Throwing Big Bags Of Weed

It costs $ 22 to dump a big bag of grass clippings in Marlborough.

New charges were filed this month when the Marlborough District Council sought to separate trash and green waste drop-off points in an attempt to reduce wait times on weekends.

The move means those with trimmed grass and trimmed bushes will no longer be weighed at the council’s new multi-million dollar Waste Sorting Center, with inbound and outbound weighbridges.

But it also means that the cost of disposing of a sack of grass clippings has risen from about $ 4 to $ 22.20.

READ MORE:
* Plastics are not worth recycling: being green is about ecology
* Accidents in landfills tip the balance to 25 tons
* Garbage company that dumps separate yard waste with general trash.

Lawnmower by trade Neil Holdaway, owner of Straight Lines, said the change had led him to a private garbage collector.

“A couple of days ago I realized, after another overload, that this was going to sink my business … I have a lawn that I do for $ 40 filling several wool bags halfway. But now they charge me $ 11.10 for half a bag, so if I fill more than three of the job, I don’t earn money. “

Raising his prices would make him lose most of his customers and prevent him from getting more, he said.

The alternative was to close his business, dump the grass (which was “forbidden”) or take the grass to another company.

The council’s solid waste manager, Alec McNeil, said the old system charged by weight but caused queues of up to 45 minutes on weekends.

So the city council chose to re-measure and charge by volume, he said.

“You couldn’t argue with the weighbridge, since it was a machine … The assistants who calculate the volumes are going to estimate.

“If you’ve shown up with a turf trailer that appears to be full, but could have been squashed a bit more, the assistant isn’t going to calculate the exact density before billing you.”

McNeil said that in an ideal world, the council would have weighbridges for trash and green waste.

I would propose this and other alternatives to the city council in January.

While grass clippings can be placed in council trash bags, this was noted on the package.

The grass left in the garbage bags could “cook” and melt the coating.

The grass clippings had been a headache for the Marlborough District Council for years, which said it couldn’t compost due to herbicides, due to people spraying grass with herbs like Weed and Feed.

So the weed was sent to the landfill, at a cost to the city of $ 231 a ton. Approximately 79 tons of weed was sent to the Bluegums landfill last year.

But in other regions, municipalities were happy to compost grass as green waste.

Christchurch City Council Resource Recovery Manager Ross Trotter said the council owned an organic processing plant, where they could ship most of the grass.

Herbicides, except clopiralid, were administered during composting.

A spokeswoman for the Nelson City Council said the Council gave $ 15 to households who wanted to compost to help them get started.

Colleen Wastney, co-owner of the private Greenwaste to Zero composters, said the clippings could be brought to her Richmond hub for $ 18 a cubic meter. In Marlborough, the council charged $ 46.20 per cubic meter.

Wastney said his lawn was mixed with the company’s green waste compost to create a “grass post,” which encouraged grass growth.

The high temperatures the compost was exposed to destroyed any “toxins and disgusts,” such as herbicides, he said.

People in Marlborough were divided on the new charges on Friday, as the cost of disposing of branches and other green waste had not changed much. Again, only grass clippings were causing a problem.

A man had paid the $ 11.10 to throw away half a sack of grass wool and yelled out of his car window: “It’s a scam. The weighbridge worked well. “