MEDIA RELEASE
March 18 2013

Funding given to treated timber waste minimisation project

A project to look at the potential of a large scale collection, recycling or recovery of hazardous treated timber waste will benefit from $145,000 of Government funding.

The treated timber waste minimisation project is led by Environment Canterbury in partnership with the Canterbury Waste Joint Committee, Christchurch City Council, BRANZ and Scion.

“This is a very positive project for Canterbury and New Zealand,” says Chris Keeling, Environment Canterbury Senior Hazardous Substances and Waste Officer. “It will allow us to address one of the more problematic areas of waste by giving us a chance to look for some better disposal options than what is out there already.

“Because of the Canterbury earthquakes there are huge quantities of waste timber that need to be managed in an environmentally and economically sustainable way. This project provides an opportunity to investigate alternative disposal methods for treated timber with the aim of reusing, recycling or recovering as much as possible while also setting us up for the future.”

Waste treated timber has always been a problem due to the treatment chemicals contained within the timber. The contaminants found in this kind of timber, such as copper, chromium and arsenic mean it cannot be disposed of in the same ways as untreated timber.

Mr Keeling explains that currently there are not many disposal options available, certainly none that utilise the material as a resource and they hope this project will lead to more options being offered.

“The project will run over a year and will mainly focus on environmental and economic feasibility so that any disposal methods will be sustainable once up and running.”

The total cost of the project is $190,900 with $144,900 being provided by the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund, $15,000 by ECan, $15,000 by the Canterbury Waste Joint Committee, $15,000 by BRANZ and $1,000 by Scion.

ENDS

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