4 October 2004

Hazardous waste not wasted

The regular Hazmobile collection for household hazardous waste is happening on Saturday 16 October at Graham Breed Drive in Three Kings.

The popular collection sees on average 20 to 25 tonnes of material dropped off each time.

Warwick Jaine, Auckland City’s resource recovery manager, says that what the public may not realise is that a lot of the material that is dropped off is recycled or reused.

“Even though the waste is hazardous, there are ways we can use it. The story of where recyclable material is used is interesting, and I suspect a lot of people would be pleased to know that their ‘waste’ is being used in a productive way instead of being disposed of,” says Mr Jaine.

Several types of hazardous waste are reused or recycled, including: small amounts of household chemicals such as cleaners, shoe polish and car care products are reused through charitable organisations around 75 per cent of the paint collected is recycled and the final product used for anti-graffiti programmes all of the waste oil and petrol is reused to fire a large cement kiln wet-cell batteries are recycled in New Zealand and rechargeable nickel-cadmium and mercury-containing batteries are sent to France for recycling.

ENDS

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