However in "a perfect world" processing Dunedin’s recycling in Timaru would not be the plan, Cr Steve Walker said.
At a closed-door meeting about three years ago, Cr Walker was one of two councillors to vote against investigating the financial implications of transporting waste out of district, before councillors ultimately approved lodging the consent application for Dunedin’s next landfill at Smooth Hill.
Now, the city’s kerbside collection contractor EnviroWaste and local recycling plant Oji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS) have failed to reach a deal to extend their agreement.
So from next month, Dunedin’s recycling will be trucked north to Timaru for processing before a new recycling plant is opened in Dunedin in two years’ time.
Cr Walker said it would not have worked out that way in "a perfect world".
"I am philosophically opposed to exporting our waste to other districts.
"Recycling — if it is destined to be reused — is a slightly different matter," Cr Walker said.
"That said, in a perfect world it would have been convenient if the stars had aligned on this one, in terms of our [Dunedin’s] new facility being available sooner."
Because the Dunedin City Council was not party to the OjiFS-EnviroWaste negotiations, it would be unprofessional to comment on why a deal could not be struck, he said.
Cr Marie Laufiso, the other councillor to oppose an investigation into trucking waste out of the district, said she voted with Cr Walker for the same philosophical reasons.
And she supported his stance on the present arrangement, she said.
When the interim measure of trucking recycling north for sorting was first reported by the Otago Daily Times earlier this month, an Enviro NZ spokeswoman said the council was "fully aware" of the plans.
One truck would make the round trip to Timaru once a day in the interim arrangement as the council and Enviro NZ partnered to build a new resource recovery facility in Dunedin, due to open in about two years’ time.
Once it was operational, the city’s kerbside recycling would be processed there, the spokeswoman said.
One truck a day of recycling transported 200km north to Timaru is significantly less than the proposed nearly three trucks a day, or about 1000 trucks a year, of rubbish that would have been transported 200km south to the AB Lime landfill at Winton.
And the council’s consent application for extending the life of the Green Island landfill shows the council’s investigation into trucking waste to the AB Lime landfill found it did not stack up financially, and, in addition, would create a significant amount of carbon emissions, wear-and-tear on roads and congestion.
When the ODT asked the council if it was concerned about wear and tear on roads or the emissions produced by trucking recycling to Timaru, a spokesman said steps were being made to ensure the recycling was being transported efficiently, and that the present arrangement was only temporary.
