There are purpose built resource recovery parks at Ashburton and Rakaia with the objective to recover as much material as possible from the waste stream, reducing the volume of residual waste requiring disposal outside the district.

Ashburton Resource Recovery Park

The Ashburton site has a facility for sorting and disposing of recyclable materials, a market place for reusable objects, and also provides an education service from the site to interested parties throughout the district eg schools, community groups etc.  Green waste is handled as a separate material that is shredded and turned into compost over an 18 month period.  The compost material is tested for quality and test results are available from the contractor. The compost is on-sold to the public as follows:

40 litre bag     $  3.50
½ scoop (medium trailer without sides) $20.00
scoop (approx 1.5 m3)    $40.00

Building and demolition materials are also separated from the waste stream.  Anything that may be recycled or reused is sorted.

The remaining residual waste is transported to the Regional Landfill at Kate Valley for disposal.  This facility opened in June 2005.  The operation of the resource recovery centre has been instrumental in restricting the amounts of residual waste transported to Kate Valley.  In 2005/2006 financial year 12,380 tonnes of material was received at the Ashburton Resource Recovery Park.  7,537 tonnes of waste was transported to Kate Valley.  This compares with the 2004/2005 financial year where 10,810 tonnes of material was received.  Of this, 7,609 tonnes were transported out of the district.

Ashburton District Council is in the process of setting up a Domestic Hazardous Waste facility at the Ashburton Resource Recovery Park.  This facility will take up to 20 litres or 20 kilogrammes of hazardous material including sprays, pool chemicals, gas cylinders etc.

Investigations are also under way for processing putrescibles (food waste) and diverting them from the waste stream.

Rakaia Resource Recovery Park

The Rakaia Resource Recovery Park provides a service for recycling, reuse, recovery, resale, and the disposal of residual waste.  The processing of recycling operations is managed by the Rakaia Resource Recovery Group, contact Neil Pluck, 302 7031 or Ashburton District Council, 307 7700.  This group has been instrumental in significantly reducing the amount of material removed from Rakaia as residual waste.  Residual waste from Rakaia is also transported to Kate Valley.