`The beast' gets ready to roar

It's called the beast.

Housed in a building 100m long, 40m wide and 9m up to the eaves, it is made up of 15 machines from Australia and the United States, and will sort Christchurch's kerbside recycling using optics, magnetics, "eddy currents" and agitation screens.

"If I'm being nice, it's called the MRF (materials recovery facility)," Meta NZ general manager Adrian Marsh said.

"But when you compare it to the old machine, it's `the beast'."

The state-of-the-art plant in Parkhouse Rd, which cost more than $10 million, will start operating next month, ushering in a new era for Christchurch recycling.

Marsh said the plant was of sufficient size that it would still be able to handle recycling from the city and its surrounds in 15 years.

The company expects commercial work to grow significantly from the small proportion it now does.

It can handle 30 tonnes of recycling material an hour including three grades of paper, three grades of plastic, as well as glass, steel and aluminium. Each year, if run for seven hours a day, it can cope with between 55,000 tonnes and 60,000 tonnes of material.

"Ten years ago, Christchurch led New Zealand in recycling," Meta chief executive Ian Hay said.

"We've slipped a little bit in terms of what we're doing, but this plant will put us back at the forefront."

While the recycling industry was struggling, Hay said there were still markets for good-quality material.

He also believed the downturn had bottomed out.

"Prices are lifting slowly again."

The Christchurch City Council estimates the new kerbside system will divert 40,000 tonnes of organic material and 7000 tonnes of recyclables from the Kate Valley landfill at Waipara each year.

The council's new three-bin waste system starts next month and the recycling trucks will start rolling into the Parkhouse Rd plant on February 2.

Meta recycled more than 2900 tonnes of material in November, about 300 tonnes more a month than two years ago. Hay expected another 10 per cent "spike" when Christchurch's green recycling crates were replaced by the new 240-litre wheelie bins.

Meta, which runs Christchurch's three EcoDepots, holds the kerbside recycling contract for the city.

- © Fairfax NZ News