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."

An Auckland ferry cruised through the SailGP course last week, and near several catamarans out on the water.

"Not even a flying F50 was stopping this ferry," SailGP said on its official Instagram account.

An Auckland Transport spokesperson says the Bayswater ferry's skipper was called through by the race marshal on Thursday during a SailGP practice session.

There's a 30s video of it. Apparently they were given the go ahead but I bet the skipper was a bit nervous as those boats approached at speed as a swarm.

A grass fire that broke out on Māngere Mountain in Auckland on Saturday night has now been contained by firefighters.

Crews were called to the scene, near Domain Road, just before 9:30pm.

Nineteen crews fought the blaze, with firefighters also standing guard at the entrance to the road and turning away people who were trying to get a closer look at the flames.

The fire grew to more than three hectares, Fire and Emergency said.

Five people have been rescued after their boat capsized in the Manukau Harbour.

The Coastguard said the incident happened near Puketutu Island about 8.20am on Saturday.

The Police Eagle helicopter, Coastguard units from Titirangi and Papakura and Auckland Airport's hovercraft helped to get the boaties out of the sea.

An Auckland food bank is asking for help to fill the cupboards after it was emptied by thieves who cut a hole in the wall to gain access to the building.

"The aim [of the food bank] is to help people in the community who are experiencing severe financial hardship ... we rely on donations from food from generous people and organisations and then to find that some scumbags have come along and robbed us, it seems to be pretty diabolical to me."

The thieves got inside by lifting some cladding from the back wall and then ripping a hole in the wall where the heat pump unit had been installed, he said.

Furlong said most of what was taken was frozen meat, biscuits and confectionary.

"If they had come to us and said they needed food, we would have given them food anyway.

A 57-year-old man has been arrested after pretending to be injured on the East Tāmaki overbridge on Auckland's Southern Motorway.

Emergency services were called to reports of a man who appeared injured at about 7.46am on Monday.

Police arrived to find the man "who was pretending to be injured as part of what we can only describe as reckless behaviour in an attempt to gain publicity", Inspector Danny Meade said.

Traffic was unusually heavy during peak-hour as a result.

House values continue to fall, with some main centres seeing an increase in the rate of decline.

The latest QV House Price Index shows home values fell by a national average of 0.2 percent over the three months to the end of May, which was down slightly from the 0.1 percent quarterly growth reported in April.

The average house value was sitting at $923,713, which was 3.9 percent up on the year earlier, though 13 percent down from the peak in late 2021.

Auckland led the market down with a 1.4 percent drop in quarterly values for the fourth month in a row.

Known for its iconic maunga like Rangitoto and Maungawhau Mt Eden, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland is a city built on an active volcanic field that has erupted at least 53 times.

But beneath streets, houses and parks, there are other – hidden – remnants of the city’s fiery past: hundreds of lava caves.

The Auckland Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP) outlines what transport projects will get funded over the next 10 years. It is a joint plan between Auckland Transport, KiwiRail, and the NZ Transport Agency. Consultation is now open until the 17th of June.

This time around, there is a disconnect between the aspirations of the city and central government’s signalled priorities. There is not enough money set aside nationally for public transport services or infrastructure to keep things running as they are, let alone to start on new projects.

If you want your voice heard now’s the time to provide feedback on what you think the priorities should be.

Highly recommend reading this April fools post and the many comments of people who thought it was real.

I'm so keen for this one. I would use it all the time.

I have to ride out to Howick for a nice seaside ride:

Rosier Burgers has closed. Local joint I only heard about recently moving to the area but saw it being recommended in various places. Tough business at the moment.

@auckland@lemmy.nz

AT: "We need to get people out of cars!" Also AT: "Let's remove trains, reduce the number of buses and... (what did we forget to cancel...?) also suspend ferry services!"