Rubbish given a second lease of life
Mobility scooters, wedding dresses, and other reusable items deserted at the Hamilton city refuse and recycling centre get sent to the dump shop, not a landfill.
The Hamilton city refuse and recycling centre proves one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, because all manner of unwanted items are snapped up from the dump shop.
“Anything from motorbikes to wedding dresses. You can pretty much name it, we’ve had it,” said Ryan Russell, operations manager of Russell Recyclers.
“We’ve got [employees] that are in the pit getting timber, clothes, anything you can imagine.”
The transfer station is owned and run by Hamilton City Council, which contracted Russell Recyclers to help cut down the waste heading to landfill.
Dumped but useable items like guitars, mobility scooters, old bikes, and lawnmowers are dropped to the on-site shop, or recovered from among the black sacks of household rubbish.
Even with this process, Mr Russell said the volume of waste they sent to the Hampton Downs landfill daily would fill around 23 shipping containers.
New Zealand as a whole sends around 2.5 million tonnes of waste to landfill each year.
It’s hard for the recycling team to fit all their goods in the shop of recovered treasures, but Hamiltonians have caught on and there are regular shoppers.
“The shop has really taken off – word of mouth – and customer volumes keep increasing,” said Mr Russell.
He said the shop averaged 450 transactions a day, and low prices were an attraction.
“Maybe it’s something they can’t afford to buy new, so they can come and buy it here for a tenth of the price, and spend three or four hours on it and get some value with very little investment.”
He said people also came for familiar items now out of production, like furniture, crockery, or old bikes.
“People are actually a lot more willing to recycle their goods if someone else can use them,” said Mr Russell.
Hamilton City Council communications advisor Simon Brandon agreed, saying the shop would appeal to people with “green tendencies”.
“They know there’s a better option than just throwing it away. They can drop it off and someone might want it.”
Russell Recycling is a family business, which has been associated with the transfer station since 1986.
Mr Russell’s mother and father started the business, which now has 37 staff members.
