Cyclone Gabrielle recovery: Silt

Aug 08, 2023

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Silt and waste line the roadside in cyclone-affected Pākōwhai. Photo / NZME

By RNZ

Councils, contractors and private companies are working together to find new ways of recycling silt-ridden materials destined for the tip after Cyclone Gabrielle created a staggering amount of waste.

More than 12,000 tonnes has been filling up the region’s Ōmarunui landfill.

It was due to be full in four years, but that has been reduced to just 18 months.

Crews were breaking the back of the problem at a new seven-hectare mixed waste site off Pākōwhai Rd last week, which was already taking on 300 truckloads daily.

Project manager Herman Wismeyer said he had been working towards opening the site since the day after the cyclone, when it was clear silt, not just water, covered the land.

Wismeyer said piles of silt arrived mixed with “whatever you can think of”, including plastic, concrete, wood, rubber, metal and horticultural fabric.

“This is the biggest problem after the flood, that we’re stuck with this silty waste.

“We just can’t take this to the landfill, we have to process it and deal with it and find new ways to recycle it.”

The silt was weeded through with the help of beefy machinery - including a trommel, which Wismeyer described as like a “big washing machine, that all the silt and rubbish goes into, starts to turn and all the silt gets thrown out”, and which would be arriving soon.

“Then it goes onto the conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt spits out the steel at the bottom, the plastic to the sides, and you’ve got people actually manually pulling stuff out and putting it in piles.”

Wismeyer estimated the job would take at least a year, with two more sites on the cards in Esk Valley and Dartmoor.

He was aiming to save 85 per cent of the material from going to landfill - and private companies had been called in to help.

Marlborough-based company Repost is turning destroyed orchard and vineyard posts into standard fence posts for farmers.

Managing director Greg Coppell said he had visited Hawke’s Bay a handful of times to size up the work.

Coppell estimated they would save about 200,000 posts, which was about a year’s work.

To deal with it, they will set up a satellite operation of sorts - they had been planning on expanding anyway, but the fallout from the cyclone had sped up the process.

Coppell said Tairāwhiti farmers would also benefit from easier access to fencing to help put their farms back together, without the hefty price tag that comes with sending the posts from the South Island.

“The fact we’re going to be working out there, potentially getting 200,000-odd posts out of the Hawke’s Bay area, will mean we’re going to land a lower-cost product to all these farmers up the East Coast.”

Rainwater tanks that crumpled like plastic bags in the cyclone and were found wedged into apple trees and hedges would have a new life, too, thanks to Vision Plastics in Auckland.

Managing director Sally Spencer said they would be repurposed into troughs, culvert pipes and other PVC products for the infrastructure industry.

“It started with a meeting in a paddock in Napier and has grown from there,” Spencer said.

“Everyone’s committed to getting these tanks back and it does feel good to be part of that and stopping the waste from going to landfill.”

Glass would be saved, too - 5R Solutions will turn shards of window glass into Pink Batts for the rebuild, as well as glass bottles.

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