Rubbishmen let cats out of the bags

The inaugural May Contain Facts dead cat of the week award goes to the two poor moggies dumped in recycling bins in Taranaki.

The discoveries were made when waste contractors picked up blue recycling bins from the Kaponga/Eltham and the Rahotu/Warea/Pungarehu areas.

"You can understand people putting a bag with food in it," South Taranaki District Council operations engineer Herbert Denton told the Daily News, "but there's no way you expect a dead cat in the recycling. It's just not on."

Mr Denton said that one contaminated recycling bin could ruin up to another five bin loads of recyclables that would then have to go into the landfill. He estimated acts of contamination had cost ratepayers about $100,000 last year.

It's led to fresh calls for a new rubbish bin which householders can use to deposit dead cats and other animals.

Freelance waste contractor Jumbo Trudgeon is lobbying Parliament to introduce the new bin – and claims he has the ear of the prime minister.

He said he discussed the idea with John Key at last weekend's National Party conference, and that the prime minister told him "it had a lot of merit".

"He told me he was interested in any ideas. When I asked whether he meant any ideas that might help boost the economy and save taxpayers and ratepayers from unnecessary expense, he said `no, just any ideas would do'."

Mr Trudgeon said Aucklanders were notorious for dumping bichon friche dogs in recycling bins, and pointed to many acts of contamination by goldfish in the Waikato, pet mice in Timaru and hedgehogs in Nelson. "It's amazing how many hedgehogs you find in Nelson."

He wouldn't comment on what he'd found in Southland.

Meanwhile, runner-up in the inaugural May Contain Facts dead cat of the week award goes to the poor moggies at the centre of a dispute in Richmond, Nelson.

Residents in Richmond have accused the local Native Bird Recovery Group of killing domestic cats.

An anonymous flier delivered to letterboxes claims the group has trapped and killed pet cats.

Richmond resident Diane Sunley has also pointed the finger at the bird protection group after she found her black cat, Mimi, had been shot – its shattered leg had to be amputated.

The native bird group denies the accusations.

Nelson SPCA inspector Craig Crowley has investigated the cat killings, and told the Nelson Mail: "There's somebody been killing cats up in the back there – even if it's not the group, somebody has been killing cats with BB guns or slug guns."

But he added: "I feel sure that [the group's] way of putting some animals down is not completely and utterly humane."

He was referring to the bird protection group's hedgehog-killing practices. The group says it has killed about 80 hedgehogs since 2005 by trapping them and then bashing them to death with a hammer. It's illegal to kill them with more than one blow, and Mr Crowley said they curled up quickly when in danger, so the hammer method was a hard one to master.

The native bird group denies the accusations.

Group leader Neil Page told the Nelson Mail that next on his agenda was a push for the Tasman District Council to classify the area as a bird recovery area. "At the moment, we have no protection for our birds from dogs. They can run wild through there, and we have lost two weka this year."

Next week: the inaugural May Contain Facts dead dog of the week award.

- © Fairfax NZ News