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Masterton District Council
Location: Wairarapa, North Island
Population: 22,900
Masterton is Wairarapa's largest town with a population of just over 18,000. The district covers a vast and varied landscape from the Tararua Ranges in the west across a fertile valley floor to hill country and the rugged east coast of the lower North Island.
Masterton's central business district has experienced extensive redevelopment in recent years based on a theme "letting in the light and building the green". This has been created with pocket parks and street furniture created especially for climbing plants and trees. In walking distance to the main shopping centre is Queen Elizabeth Park, featuring trees planted in 1877 and an historic tea kiosk which has been developed into a French restaurant aside a cricket oval and overlooking a boating lake. At the northern end of Masterton's CBD, a multi-million dollar museum and art gallery for the Wairarapa region, called 'Aratoi', was opened to the public late in 2001.
Another popular venue for residents and visitors alike is Henley Lake Park which covers 43 hectares and includes an 11 hectare lake and four small islands. Special wildlife areas have been established and it has become a popular spot for fishermen, sailboat owners and dog owners, who relish the fostered "wilderness" environment.
Within an hour's drive from Masterton are two major coastal settlements. Castlepoint is famous for its lighthouse atop a reef and Riversdale is an excellent surfing beach. Both offer good fishing opportunities.
The Masterton District Council's commitment to the Zero Waste philosophy late in 1999 was a continuation of a commitment to waste reduction and the protection of the environment which goes back half a century.
Masterton in the 1950s attracted international acclaim, when it was believed to be the first town in the world to have its waste fully composted. In 1948, three brothers, Gordon, Eric and Lionel Blake, leased just under 10 hectares of Crown land, originally a sewage farm, but including a refuse dump, and began composting operations. Their aim was to manufacture an organic compost for gardens and as a top dressing for farm crops. To everyone's surprise, they even composted many inorganic materials such as plastics, with scientists at the Wallaceville Research Centre in Upper Hutt clearing their compost as suitable for sale and use. The Blake brothers were contracted by the Masterton Borough Council to carry out this operation, which continued successfully for 13 years. The work eventually ceased in 1962.
In the late 1980s, the Masterton District Council acknowledged the need to tidy up its landfill operation. The volume of waste at the tip face needed to be reduced, scavenging at the dump was a problem and environmentally concerned residents and groups, such as Earth Action Group, were pressing for some form of recycling measures to be introduced.
On a 10 hectare site, east of Masterton, the Council has developed an extensive recycling depot for paper, cardboard, 1 & 2 plastics, steel and aluminium cans, clothing and glass. Other metal, including whiteware, car bodies, sheet steel, non-ferrous metals etc are collected in a separated 'Metal Scrap Yard'. A new used oil facility is being unveiled in December 2002 and a small second hand store also operates from the site. Adjacent to this is one of the largest traditional composting operations in New Zealand. Reinstated in 1993, up to 700 tonnes of greenwaste are shredded each month as the first step in a 9 month process which produces an excellent range of compost products. Each month one new windrow (mound) is formed and the previous 7 are turned over. The oldest (9th) mound is filtered, graded and, depending upon clients requests, blended with manure, soil or bark to produce the final product. It is then sold back to the public. Recent major orders have included landscaping for Peter Jackson's new residence and the Westpac Trust Stadium in Wellington. The facility is now integral to the Masterton community with approximately 100 residences per day depositing greenwaste.
There are also three rural Transfer Stations including the coastal settlements of Castlepoint and Riversdale and inland Mauriceville. Greenwaste is collected at these sites and brought back to Masterton for processing. Recyclables are collected at both these transfer stations and another three urban drop-off centres around the town as well as at the Nursery Rd site itself. The largest two of the urban drop-off centres are being upgraded in December 2002.
In March 2002, kerbside recycling was introduced to the town of Masterton and a Waste Minimisation Officer was also appointed. This kerbside recyclable collection has proved very popular and towards a quarter of all refuse picked up by the council is now recycled. A CBD cardboard collection was introduced by the private sector in November 1999 and several large businesses have made significant capital investments in diverting their waste to energy production. For several years the Masterton District Council has met its self-appointed target of reducing the volumes buried at the landfill by 7.5% each year and overall, Masterton District Council is now boasting diversion to landfill rate of 40%.
In 1996 Masterton joined with the other two councils in the Wairarapa. This group is working on strategies which include the adoption of Zero Waste principles at a regional level, co-ordinating pricing policies, unifying services where economies of scale can be gained, researching the future development of a regional landfill (as Masterton's is likely to be full by 2006) and implementing additional diversion. All this is just the next step for a district which has paved the way in New Zealand's waste management journey.
For further information contact Phil Hancock, Waste Minimisation Officer at phil@mstn.govt.nz or call 06 370 5083 or go to www.mstn.govt.nz .
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