Crossing line to clean-up

Phil Maybury said “ka pai” when his Carterton District Council boss asked him to collect discarded furniture in South Wairarapa. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

ALEYNA MARTINEZ
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Carterton District Council cut through the red tape to solve the problem of furniture dumped by the Waiohine Bridge on State Highway 2.

As was reported on Wednesday in the Times-Age, confusion had reigned after complaints started coming in on Monday when the furniture was sighted by members of the public.

Not as to who dumped it – still unknown – but as to who should clean it up.

It was in South Wairarapa District Council territory, but they said it was the New Zealand Transport Agency’s job.

NZTA said it was either SWDC or the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s role.

The regional council weren’t having a bar of it.

Ultimately it was Carterton District Council who stepped in to remove the eyesore.

The council was made aware of the rubbish on Tuesday morning but didn’t immediately remove it as it was outside the Carterton district lines. However, realising the rubbish was still there in the afternoon, council staff decided to take action and get it cleaned up.

Infrastructure and operations administrator Angela McMenamin put through a service request to get the rubbish removed, despite knowing it was outside Carterton’s boundary.

“We help wherever we can, just to be helpful to the community,” she said. “In this case, we knew about it and it could be seen from the road, so we decided to do it.”

Carterton District Council’s Phil Maybury, one of the council’s parks and reserves team, was more than happy to get the job done after receiving the approved request from his manager Clinton Thompson.

“He asked me to do it and I just said, ‘ka pai’,” Maybury said. “I’ve picked up rubbish from that site before. This load could be seen from the north heading south and it was quite obvious because it was brightly coloured.”

Among the dumped load was a couch, a stand-up fan, drop leaf table, two separate armchairs, a television, and other rubbish including bottles and pieces of wood.

Maybury said it did not reflect well against the district’s mountain ranges in the background.

“There were at least three drop-loads worth of rubbish there,” he said.

Trudie Jones, manager of the Wairarapa Resource Centre Re-use Shop said they would pick up furniture and household items from Wairarapa residents if they got stuck discarding large items like that, especially if the furniture was in good condition.