The Pakowhai Road silt site is filling up with rubbish from Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo: Hastings District Council / Mark Henderson
Councils, contractors and private companies are working together to find new ways of recycling silt-ridden materials destined for the tip after a staggering amount of waste was brought about by Cyclone Gabrielle.
More than 12,000 tonnes has been filling up the region's Ōmarunui landfill.
It was due to be full in four years' time, but that has been reduced to just 18 months away.
Crews were breaking the back of the problem at a new seven-hectare mixed waste site that opened off Pakowhai Road last week, which was already taking on 300 truckloads daily.
Project manager Herman Wismeyer said he had been working towards opening this facility since the day after the cyclone, when it was clear it was not just water, but silt, that covered the land.
Herman Wismeyer Photo: Hastings District Council / Mark Henderson
Wismeyer said piles of silt arrived mixed with "whatever you can think of", including plastic, concrete, wood, rubber, metal, and horticultural fabric.
"This is the biggest problem after the flood, that we're stuck with this silty waste.
"We just can't take this to the landfill, we have to process it and deal with it and find new ways to recycle it."
Once the silt arrived, it was weeded through with the help of some beefy machinery - including a trommel, which Wismeyer said would be arriving soon.
"So that's almost like a big washing machine, that all the silt and rubbish goes into, starts to turn and all the silt gets thrown out.
"Then it goes onto the conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt spits out the steel at the bottom, the plastic to the sides, and you've got people actually manually pulling stuff out and putting it in piles."
Wismeyer estimated the job would take at least a year, with two more sites on the cards in Esk Valley and Dartmoor.
He was aiming to save 85 percent of the material from going to landfill - and private companies had been called in to help.
Cyclone waste turned into fence posts, Pink Batts, pipes
Marlborough-based company Repost had the answer for the destroyed orchard and vineyard posts - turning them into standard fence posts for farmers.
Managing director Greg Coppell said he had visited Hawke's Bay a handful of times to size up the work.
"Just working with the contractors up there regarding just the awareness of trying to save the material in the best form it can be, and then separating it to a point that we'll be able to go in there and get the full potential or the value out of it I guess, rather than just having to chip it or go to landfill."
Coppell estimated they would save about 200,000 posts, which was about a year's work.
To deal with it, they will set up a satellite operation of sorts - they had been planning on expanding anyway, but the fallout from the cyclone had sped up the process.
Coppell said Tai Rāwhiti farmers would also benefit from easier access to fencing to help put their farms back together, without the hefty price tag that comes with sending the product from the South Island.
"The fact we're going to be working out there, potentially getting 200,000 odd posts out of the Hawke's Bay area, will mean we're going to land a lower cost product to all these farmers up the East Coast."
Rainwater tanks that crumpled like plastic bags in the cyclone and were found wedged into apple trees and hedges would have a new life, too, thanks to Vision Plastics in Auckland.
Managing director Sally Spencer said they would be repurposed into troughs, culvert pipes and other PVC products for the infrastructure industry.
"It started with a meeting in a paddock in Napier and has grown from there," Spencer said.
"Everyone's really committed to the process of getting these tanks back and it does feel good to be part of that and stopping the waste from going to landfill."
Glass would be saved, too - 5R Solutions will turn shards of window glass into Pink Batts for the rebuild, as well as glass bottles.
