Was doing to gibbing in another part of the house. After checking the wall I determined I would replace a bit and found this bastard in it! A not so fun surprise but there was an obvious gap to be patched.

(Have reported)

We’ve waited a decade for this railway. Here’s what it will actually be like.

Too much of Auckland’s recycling is just going to waste - the landfill, that is, and officials say that needs to change.

Auckland is one of New Zealand’s least efficient cities for recycling collection, and an awful lot of that is because the wrong rubbish is being put in the bins.

About 30 percent of what goes into Auckland’s kerbside recycling bins is actually being sent to landfills due to contamination or not actually being accepted recyclables.

“Recycling still works, but contamination has been increasing.”

Here’s some top tips that waste experts offered:

• Don’t put your recycling into plastic bags when you put them in the bin. They’ll just get chucked out entirely into the landfill.
• Soft plastics - packaging, wrapping, bags, et cetera - aren’t allowed - as they get tangled in the machinery. You can instead drop off soft plastic packaging to recycle at multiple
• Plastic lids from bottles are a problem - anything under a certain size can cause problems in sorting machinery. Discard lids or see about recycling them with the caps and lids recycling scheme and put the clean containers in recycling instead.
• Avoid anything that’s dangerous - gas bottles, batteries, rechargeable items. Empty aerosol cans should be put in your rubbish bin instead.
• Recycling that’s overly contaminated with other waste - for instance a pizza box with a bit of grease on it is fine, but a pizza box that’s got huge chunks of yesterday’s pepperoni special on it is not.

People sometimes think it’s become too complicated to sort recycling, but Jaine said it’s actually pretty easy.

“A simple rule of thumb is to place only household packaging and containers from your kitchen, bathroom and laundry in your recycling bin: Glass bottles and jars; paper and cardboard; plastic bottles, trays, and containers (numbers 1, 2 and 5 only); tin, steel and aluminium cans.”

Up to 320mm of rain could fall in Northland in 48 hours from 4pm this afternoon, MetService is warning.

A number of other watches and warnings are in place across the country in what MetService is calling an “impactful” weather event.

MetService meteorologist John Law said the heaviest rainfall was expected from Northland to Bay of Plenty and its intensity and duration would bring “threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding, and slips”.

Always nice to hear acknowledgement of the obvious - with sunburns name checked.

AT is dysfunctional, but this is going to be much much worse. With few exceptions, Councillors and Local Board representatives have no expertise in transport.

Can pretty much guarantee that any future investments are going to be based on who screams the loudest.

Two people have been injured in Central Auckland after debris fell from a building.

Police were called to a building on Queen St on Monday morning after an object fell and shattered glass.

Two pedestrians were moderately injured and were taken to a nearby medical centre, a police spokesperson said.

Auckland Council’s co-governance and co-management representative says they have been told by fire crews the blaze on Māngere mountain at the weekend was intentionally lit.

Te Waka Tai-ranga Whenua kaiwhakahaere Joe Hammon told RNZ they spoke with Fire and Emergency on Sunday.

“They explained it to be intentionally lit from the top centre of the crater,” he said.

“The fire has then spread evenly downwards towards the bottom of the crater, both left and right of the crater, and as you can see in the photos in media, the whole wall of the crater right down to the bottom has been burnt to charcoal.”