15 May 2018
Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Illegal dumping on Dansey Road
Enquiry
Rotorua Daily Post sought comment from Council after taking a picture of illegally dumped rubbish on Dansey Road.
Response
From Infrastructure General Manager Stavros Michael:
Council encourages everyone to dispose of their waste responsibly.
Illegal dumping is a community problem and people have to take personal responsibility for doing the right thing in disposing of the waste they generate. Most people visiting and living in Rotorua do the right thing and we urge residents to be vigilant in reporting and discouraging illegal dumping to help reduce the problem.
Look for alternatives to dumping like scrap metal yards, second hand stores if the items are still in good condition, or sharing trailers and the cost of taking it to landfill. Also consider asking a friend, neighbour or another member of your whānau if they have space in their wheelie bin.
The majority of illegally dumped rubbish is smaller items that could be placed in the recycling or general waste wheelie bins and don't need to be taken to landfill.
If people see illegally dumped rubbish please contact Rotorua Lakes Council on 07 348 4199 to report it or if you witness someone dumping rubbish where they shouldn't, report it to the Police.
Facts & Figures
- Council arranges for the clean-up of approximately six tonnes of illegally dumped rubbish each month.
- It costs Council an average of about $100,000 per year to clean-up illegally dumped rubbish.
- The most commonly dumped items are green waste and non-compliant rubbish bags like the black plastic bags you get in the supermarket.
- In Rotorua, illegal dumping represents about 0.5% of the 50,000 tonnes of waste generated.
- It is estimated that nationally illegal dumping makes up 3 - 5% of the 3 million tonnes of waste created.
According to our records a member of the public phoned yesterday about that same rubbish and notified us that it had been removed so there was no need to send someone out.
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Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Growth in Rotorua's GDP
Enquiry
From Rotorua Daily Post for Destination Rotorua:
I am writing a story today off the back of MBIE's latest figures around GDP.
To sum up the extensive figures, in the year from 2016-2017 the Rotorua GDP grew from $3496.715 million to $3777.534 million.
The figures go into detail about industry sectors for 2000 to 2016 but not 2017.
So I looked at 2015-2016 growth and noted that Agriculture had seen the biggest dollar figure growth. ($47.5 million in the year) followed by wood and paper products manufacturing ($15.894). In terms of drop in GDP, Petroleum, chemical, polymer and rubber product manufacturing GDP dropped the most (- $17.7 million) followed by Wholesale Trade (-$12.164 million).
All these are just plain dollar figures and there are others figures adjusted for inflation, adjusted per capita and so on.
I was wondering if you would be able to give me general comment about growth areas in Rotorua over the last year or five years.
Response
The following response was provided by Destination Rotorua:
There is positive growth in the region. In terms of general comment about growth areas - I can say:
Rotorua is one of New Zealand's most diverse economies including forestry and wood processing, tourism, geothermal, agribusiness, education, health, manufacturing and social services. We are seeing positive growth in all sectors. Log prices, dairy prices, meat, lamb and wool, housing prices, visitor spend and investment are all positive..
As a destination Rotorua visitor activity too is going from strength to strength. The underlying trend in continuous growth in domestic visitor nights indicates Rotorua is an increasingly popular destination for domestic visitors. March marks the thirteenth consecutive month that Rotorua has outperformed both the national and North Island benchmarks for growth in domestic visitor nights spent in commercial accommodation.
