Media Release

Release date:
Thursday, 1 July 2010

Fitzherbert Street, Gisborne, New Zealand. www.gdc.govt.nz

Action taken to stop the pong

A bad smell hanging over Gisborne city today has been attributed to corn waste. Gisborne District Council issued a consent in 2000 for Cedenco to dispose of vegetable waste from their production processes onto land they lease outside of the city boundary near the airport.

This food waste is generally plowed back into the land it comes from effectively composting the waste.  This practice rarely causes odour problems. The cause of the smell which was first noticed in the city on Tuesday is corn waste that was piled onto the leased land in April. The land has been used to store pumpkins and these have been left on the land to dry so they can be processed later.

The corn waste had not been spread or ploughed in because the pumpkins were still drying. Chief environmental health officer Sarwan Kumar said that food waste like this should never be left in piles. “The fact that we have had a lot of cool wet weather has meant that the waste has been relatively odour free considering the length of time it has been sitting. The change to warmer dry weather this week and the southerly wind change on Wednesday is why the smell has been apparent in the city.”

When council staff were notified of the bad smell Cedenco was asked to find a solution. A contractor was called in to disc the waste material which effectively turns it over with the soil. An inspection at 3pm today (Thursday 1 July) showed that this had been done and that the smell should improve. Council staff will continue to monitor the situation over the weekend. The real test as to how effective these measures have been will be around mid morning tomorrow (Friday 2 July) when the sun is up and warming the land.

Follow up actions are likely to occur including an agreement from Cedenco not to use this area of land for food waste disposal in the future. One of the conditions of the consent is that there should be no offensive or objectionable smells beyond the boundary of the property. The calibrated noses of council’s environmental health staff were not needed to confirm that the consent had indeed been breached.

ENDS

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