Columns

So why was there a guy coming out of the AFT tent after Roger Sutton's talk last term with a condom in his hand?

I mean, I know what a condom should be used for, but I'm sure I would've noticed if someone – sometwo – were getting down to it while Roger was explaining the intricacies of quake recovery. The reason I took note of this guy was because he wanted to put it in a recycling bin that I was wheeling back to where it had been removed from when someone needed a doorstop (which, by the way, is not in a bin's job description).

"That's not recycling," I said, manoeuvring my vulnerable bin away from the dangling menace.

"Yes it is; it's plastic," he said.

"No, it's latex and it goes in the rubbish. Someone has to sort through the recycling and they don't want to deal with it."

I should have asked him then, but it was obvious that the condom had been used for something other than its true purpose. What is of more interest is that this guy did what most of us do every day: he went to put a piece of rubbish in a bin, without thinking about what would happen to it next.

Rubbish has an afterlife

The UC has put quite a lot of thought into what our waste's afterlife should be. The current recycling system was rolled out in 2008-9 and has been a success, with the tonnage of recycling leaving campus almost equalling that of landfill (which suggests it could be better).

Mastagard, our waste providers (or more correctly waste sorter-outers), are happy too, especially with being the first waste company in New Zealand to earn Bronze Enviromark certification, which they attained in order to fulfil their contract with the UC.

But before it gets to Mastagard, there's a number of folk who handle that coffee cup filled with the remains of the pie that you put in the recycling bin (which is where coffee cups go, but they need to be emptied).

So who are the people in our neighbourhood? The Oscars and Orinokos of our waste "stream"?

UC Cleaners

If you use an indoor bin, the first folk to get their hands on your bits are the early morning cleaning staff, who tie up the bags and leave them in the outside bins (or next to them if they're full).

UC Picker-uppers and Sorters

These are the men in the rubbish collection truck that attend to our 200+ buildings every day of the week. They get to deal with the sharp objects and leaking bags (from all the liquids left in cups and cans). The truck then goes back to the Facilities Management yard and the bags are loaded into skips (landfill, paper, cardboard), or bins (organics, recycling, batteries). Next time you see these guys, you might want to smile and say thanks.

Mastagard drivers

Every day, several Mastagard trucks enter the Facilities Management yard and empty up to three skips' worth of paper and cardboard, two of landfill, and fourteen wheelie bins of recycling. The organics collection fills four wheelie bins and is carted away twice a week.

Mastagard on-site drivers and sorters

The trucks return to Mastagard's operations plant in Bromley where they are weighed before being unloaded in the entrance of the large sorting shed. From there, diggers are used to marshal the mixed grade paper onto a conveyer belt that rises to a platform about a storey high, where it is sorted by actual people (it is an urban myth that machines do all the sorting). The separate streams of paper are then fed through a baling machine, before being stacked up ready for export to recyclers. On Fridays they clear out the paper, and feed through the plastic.

Challenges

Given that their office and the shed housing their plastic processing plant were munted in the February 22nd earthquake, Mastagard seem to be coping well with their share of the detritus created by a citywide clean up. On being told about the Friday switchovers, I stared at the mountains and outcrops of paper in various stages of processing and realised that all the loose pieces would have to be cleared so that it didn't contaminate the plastic – respect!

Outcomes

With hundreds of bales of high, medium, and low grade paper and plastics stacked up, Mastagard are doing a sterling job with our waste. Of course, I'm hoping that with the launch of UC Waste Watchers next year we'll actually decrease the amount we're sending them, but if we get better at sorting it at the entry level it will be of a higher quality so that they can sell it for more.

Beyond Mastagard, there are no doubt several more armies of people operating before our recycling is made into something else, so on behalf of all who handle the UC's trash I would like to respectfully request that next time you have something to dispose of (condom or otherwise), you think about where it goes.

As part of our attempt to divert more recyclables to the recycling, we're trialling a new poster in the new Undercroft area, and would love to know what you think. Please email me at sharon.mciver@canterbury.ac.nz.

For more on our waste stream go to http://www.sustain.canterbury.ac.nz/documents/UC_Waste_Audit_2011.pdf