Changes coming to The Norfolk Wave Recycling Centre

As plenty salan will know, the management and operations of The Norfolk Wave Recycling Centre (TNW) are transitioning from Revolve Your World (RYW) to The Norfolk Island Regional Council (NIRC). With this transition comes a new opportunity to fine tune the recycling and waste management facility to suit our community’s needs. As the weeks go by we will be making changes in the way we process rubbish internally, and in the way that we receive rubbish from yorlyi. We will be working on more signage, cleaning up areas to make room for new ideas and improve flow, and trialling some new recycling processes.

It is important to note that operations that were previously referred to as ‘Norfolk Wave’ or ‘NIRC’ operations, are now consolidated under a unified management team and facility. For clarity, the entire site will be referred to as ‘The Norfolk Wave’ with specific areas being referred to as the ‘residential drop-off’ area, the ‘re-use’ area, the ‘bulky & builders waste’ area etc.

Cardboard
Our first area of focus is cardboard! Cardboard makes up 25% of all household and commercial rubbish that we process (about 440kg/day), and we want to keep as much of it as possible on island. By separating cardboard into 2 easy streams, you can help us to keep the majority of cardboard on Norfolk and save on hefty export and recycling costs.

The two streams are:

1. Composting cardboard - clean brown corrugated card with plastic tape & stickers removed and no plastic lining
2. Kaaduu Cardboard (no good) - cardboard that is plastic lined or glossy

Yorlyi will see both cardboard windows open at the Residential drop off – one for ‘Composting Cardboard’ and one for ‘Kaaduu Cardboard’. Please help by removing tape and stickers and then placing the correct cardboard through the correct window.

The set up in the Commercial Drop Off area will be much the same, using cages and signage as above. Bulk Composting Cardboard can be placed directly into the bay provided, ask the friendly staff if you need any help.

Batteries
Our second priority are batteries! The most important part of battery handling, storage and recycling is SAFETY. There are currently no carriers that can transport used batteries off Norfolk, and until we can find a way to get them to Australia we will focus on ensuring batteries are being stored safely at The Norfolk Wave.

You will soon notice a new ‘battery bin’ at the Norfolk Wave drop-off. This is a special bin for the safe storage of lithium ion and other batteries. Taping battery terminals is a quick and effective way to reduce the risk of sparking and ignition. You can pre-tape terminals at home using regular sticky tape, or you can bring your batteries to the centre and make use of the tape dispenser there. Either way, terminals MUST BE TAPED before disposal. If you don’t tape, then someone’s time and wages will have to be spent doing this fiddly but essential task.

Any leaking or swollen batteries MUST BE KEPT SEPARATE and handed to staff for disposal. If leaking or swollen batteries are disposed of into the battery bin there is an increased risk of fire.

Button batteries, AA’s, AAA’s, laptop, power tool and other household batteries can be disposed of in the battery bin. Larger batteries like car, computer and E-bike batteries need to be delivered to the E-waste area where they will be packed onto a pallet and stored into a container for safety

Thankyou all for helping, stay posted for more information and changes in the coming weeks.

Thaenks f aklan
The Norfolk Wave team