The Waitaki Resource Recovery Park is celebrating 20 years of converting trash to treasure this weekend.

On Sunday (February 18) there will be a small celebration held at the park, with a sausage sizzle and ice-cream truck from 11am to 2pm, to celebrate 20 years of saving stuff from landfill, along with some giveaways.

The Waitaki Resource Recovery Trust runs the park as a social enterprise, providing employment and opportunities for the community.

Initial set-up costs of $20,000 were provided by the Otago Regional Council in 2003, along with $65,000 for the purchase of a baler which is still in use today.

Manager Trish Hurley said there is a real sense of family amongst the team.

“It’s an inclusive space where we all come together to help our community and environment and we’re all really proud of the work we do.”

The MenzShed - a space for men who love to make stuff, and the garden corner for the green-fingered in the district, are also both on site.

The purpose of the park is to divert as much waste as possible from landfill, either through recycling or repurposing, and in recent years it has had about an 85% success rate.

All recycling collected from the district heads to the park, but it also accepts other items on-site, such as batteries, Tetrapak, soft plastics, lids, toothpaste tubes and polystyrene.

Resaleable items are available for purchase in the on-site Get Sorted shop, while green waste is converted into mulch which is also available for sale.

The park is self-funding with support from Waitaki District Council. Over the 20 years, it has had more than 1000 volunteers working onsite, many who went on to paid employment, while others benefitted from work experience and learning life skills.

Operations have expanded operations over time too - the park began accepting green waste in 2005, rubbish for the landfill in 2006, it also changed to opening seven days a week for recycling, green waste and rubbish drop off.

The development of garden corner in 2019 meant the park began recycling and selling plants, and the shop went from operating four days a week to seven, in 2020.

Tying in with the 20-year celebrations, locals will also be able to pop down and have their say about the future of waste in the district, with council representatives at the park on Sunday.

The council is in the process of consulting on its Waste Minimisation and Management Plan, which determines what waste solutions the district will focus on for the next six years.

Last year Waitaki sent 9433 tonnes of waste to landfill - or around 386kg per person. A lot of that waste could be recycled, or reused, rather than being sent to landfill, and last year 2460 tonnes were diverted from the landfill to be recycled.