Fire and Emergency<\/a> was contacted again about smoke coming from the plant\u2019s vicinity, with a caller telling responders it \u201cseems similar to a burn-off but smells absolutely awful\u201d.<\/p>\nSinclair told the Environment Court in July the smoke from the site was \u201cvapour\u201d or \u201csteam\u201d and in a statement to NZME, he said the comments on the incident report were not an official statement of finding.<\/p>\n
The occupant told Fire and Emergency it was a controlled burn.<\/p>\n
Fire and Emergency classified the incident as a \u201cfalse alarm \u2013 good intent\u201d, with the cause recorded as \u201csteam, dust etc mistaken for smoke\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hours later, Fire and Emergency was called again to a structure fire at the site, noting \u201cburn-off out of control\u201d.<\/p>\n
Two fire engines were dispatched and firefighters wore breathing apparatus to get the situation under control.<\/p>\n
The crews said \u201ccan you notify Northland Regional Council that the runoff from this fire is entering the stormwater system\u201d. The firefighters did not clarify which system was affected.<\/p>\n
On September 9, 2026, a plume from the site triggered concern on a public Whang\u0101rei Facebook site, with many complaining about the smell and warning others to stay indoors.<\/p>\n
Fire and Emergency told NZME it was alerted to the smell of burning plastic and a large amount of smoke covering Port Whang\u0101rei at 8.36pm that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne fire truck from Whang\u0101rei responded, where it was discovered the smoke was coming from a business on Kioreroa Rd, Port Whang\u0101rei. No firefighting action was required and the crew was stood down,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
![\"A]()
A plume from an industrial site on September 9 triggered concern on a public Whang\u0101rei Facebook site. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
Sinclair gave his comments to NZME in response to the incident report.<\/p>\n
He said the site is not connected to the Whang\u0101rei public stormwater network and there was no independent verification of where any firefighting water travelled.<\/p>\n
Sinclair said the 2025 call-outs were \u201cequipment-related events during the early operational phase of the facility\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing those events, operational procedures, monitoring systems and plant controls were reviewed and improved as part of the normal commissioning and continuous-improvement process undertaken for industrial equipment,\u201d Sinclair said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not seek to minimise any incident involving industrial machinery. However, we believe it is important that the complete Fire and Emergency record is accurately represented and that comments made by callers, preliminary communications entries and operational observations are clearly distinguished from formal findings and conclusions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain committed to operating the Whang\u0101rei facility safely, transparently and in co-operation with Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the relevant regulatory authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Warren]()
Warren Sinclair’s plastic-burning plant has caught fire twice. Photo \/ Northland Regional Council<\/p>\n
In a statement to NZME, Zero Waste\u2019s Sue Coutts said the reports show environmental impacts beyond property boundaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, these events are not what you would expect from the kind of low-risk operations that fall within the category of permitted activities in the Northland Regional Plan,\u201d Coutts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our view, technology such as plastic waste-to-fuel is a toxic disposal solution that does not solve our plastic waste problem, but instead creates new problems and unacceptable levels of risk for the communities in which they are situated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regional council\u2019s group manager for regulatory services Colin Dall said it had appealed the High Court decision and was therefore unable to comment about the plant. <\/p>\n
Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n
Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In July 2026, Environment Court Judge Jeff Smith ruled the plant didn\u2019t need consent, labelling it a \u201cpermitted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3225,15385,1975,4996,28527,57377,10474,10039,1349,15974,273,2079,7572,1342,78,8454,111,43,139,31704,69,1118,3111,4517,4885,295164,1321,295163,61,6656,1869,379],"class_list":["post-598829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-according","tag-approved","tag-at","tag-blaze","tag-burned","tag-callouts","tag-control","tag-controversial","tag-court","tag-emergency","tag-environment","tag-fire","tag-firefighters","tag-five","tag-in","tag-including","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-notes","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-out","tag-past","tag-plant","tag-plasticburning","tag-services","tag-sinclairs","tag-to","tag-warren","tag-whangrei","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}