Council has today sent 140 m2 of Marlborough recycling to Eco Central in Christchurch.

Local company Renwick Transport has been contracted to take recycling south and will return with a backload of other products.

Solid Waste Manager Mark Lucas said while trucking recycling south had begun, there was still a huge backlog and he asked residents to continue to hold their recycling at least over the weekend.

“We need to clear the backlog we have been storing,” he said. “We hope to be back up and running at full capacity early next week with recycling bins for the public to use outside the recycling centre. We will advise when these are in place.”

Mr Lucas said using trucks to take recycling south was a temporary solution. “We are still working on a plan to deal with all of our recycling locally by Christmas,“ he said.

Council’s Resouce Recovery Centre which processes all Marlborough’s recycling, including from the region’s remote transfer stations, was seriously damaged by fire last week and will be closed for some time.

Mr Lucas thanked everyone for their continued patience and asked for tolerance going forward.

“Please be kind to our staff who are working in adverse conditions,” he said. “As people will appreciate, we are dealing with a rather fluid and challenging situation following this fire.”

All transfer stations, the Dump Shop, Green Waste Facility and the Hazardous Waste Centre are operating as normal.

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