How to become a recycling superhero

Recycling – it’s about more than just the feel-good factor. There’s an urgent need to reduce the pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that come from landfill and re-use resources. It’s also an issue that affects your pocket: the country is moving increasingly to a user pays system for kerbside rubbish collection.

Under user pays you’re charged for what goes into landfill, but recycling is still picked up free – meaning you save by recycling instead of putting waste in the bin. Cutting out one rubbish bag a week saves you about $115 a year. Currently Dunedin, Wellington and parts of Auckland are on a user pays system, while Christchurch and the rest of Auckland pay for all rubbish and recycling through their rates.

Auckland sends 20 per cent more rubbish to landfill on average than other centres in New Zealand, and in an effort to change this all of Auckland will move to a user pays system starting in 2015.

What a stink!

Despite the fact that most people make an effort, up to five per cent of material that is put out for recycling still ends up in landfill, generally because we don’t understand the rules. The good news is that even though recycling dos and don’ts differ around the country there are many things we can all do better.

One of the biggest problems for recycling centres is food contamination. At some centres material is sorted by hand, but the biggest and most efficient plants use automated systems of optical sensors, magnets and machinery to sort and bale recycling.

This is the case at Visy New Zealand’s recycling facility in Onehunga, for example, which handles material from Thames, Coromandel, Cambridge, Waipa, Whangarei and Auckland. There, a half-full bottle of milk or soft-drink can confuse the optical scanners because the liquid changes the look of the material, meaning it is likely to be rejected by the system and end up in landfill.

And if a partially full bottle does get through the scanners it can then get baled up and leak through all the other material, creating an almighty stink as it rots and putting the entire container load of recycling at risk of being rejected.

The best tip for keeping food waste out of your recycling is to give cans and bottles a quick rinse. Using the last of the dishwater avoids water waste.

Plastic bag kryptonite

Plastic bags are another major headache. As a general rule they simply cannot be recycled and contaminate good recycling if they make it through into bales. They are also incredibly strong when stretched and tend to wind around moving parts and damage machinery – or else the wind blows them away from the recycling plant, creating a litter problem for the surrounding area.

Putting good recycling in a bag is also a big no-no. “If someone put their recycling in a plastic bag and then threw that into their wheelie bin,” says Visy New Zealand’s education manager Meredith Graham, “the likelihood of it getting recycled is very slim.”

“Things like plastic bottles in a plastic bag could go through the whole facility but not get put into any one category because the machine can’t identify what it is – it ends up going into the waste bin.”

One of the places that can accept plastic bags – and actually recycles rather than binning them – is Wastenet Southland, which serves Invercargill, Southland and Gore. But really, the general rule for recycling heroes on plastic bags is: don’t do it.

Though just to complicate things, Aucklanders who live in Waitakere or the North Shore can’t put their paper and cardboard into the usual recycling bin, so for them it’s still okay to put paper out in plastic bags, which are manually split open at the Concourse transfer station in Henderson.

Other villains

Other common no-nos include clothing (send it to the Sallies), and very small items like bottle caps and bread bag tags. Being too small for the machinery, these fall through the cracks and end up littered across the factory floor from where they’re swept up and put into landfill.

Recycling heroes can solve the problem by keeping plastic bottle tops on and putting bread tags inside bigger plastic items. Batteries, broken crockery and rubber all need to be disposed of in other ways or upcycled (see table on next page).

Where does it go?

Glass is generally recycled in New Zealand but most other materials are shipped to Australia, Asia or India. Hundreds of containers head offshore each month.

Plastic milk bottles will likely go to Korea to be washed, sterilised, chipped, heated and refined into plastic beads. These are then sold to be turned into clothing, plastic pipes and road cones. Some oversized and rigid plastics are recycled in New Zealand and made into items like wheelie bins.

Aluminium also tends to go overseas. Other metals go to dealers either here or offshore, as does a lot of paper which is pulped and reused.

Packaging with parts made of different grades of plastic, like water bottles with complicated mouthpieces, will generally end up being recycled with the most dominant material. However, there is a possibility that automated machinery simply gets confused and it ends up in landfill.

And yes, it’s true, some recycling does actually end up being burned, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Energy-capture technology that is only just starting in New Zealand sees waste from recycling plants burned in a sealed incinerator. This stops any emissions or toxic fumes being released into the air and the process generates electricity, which is either used by the recycling plant or sold back to the grid.

Hints for heroes

Recycling champions think before they buy

• Accept fewer plastic bags
• Choose paper and cardboard over plastic wrapping
• Avoid Styrofoam trays – they can’t be recycled
• Choose tin and glass packaging over soft plastic and foil
• Try to buy goods in packaging made from one material
• Ask retailers if they can recycle their own packaging. Some take e-waste and polystyrene

While you work

In the office

• Have boxes where staff can leave used paper. Set aside a printer tray that prints on its reverse
• Consider using a service such as www.lovenotes.co.nz to turn your paper waste into new stationery
• Sign up with a recycling company to take other paper and plastics
• Croxley Recycling recycles printer cartridges: www.croxley.co.nz/services/recycling
• Expol takes polystyrene www.expol.co.nz

If you're selling a product

• Try to use packaging that uses one material
• Label your product clearly. The lower the number (like 1-3) the better its chance of being recycled
• Avoid polystyrene, styrofoam, foil and soft plastic film

If it’s clean you CAN recycle…

• Rigid plastics numbered 1-7 (leave plastic caps on)
• Tin cans
• Paper coffee cups and plastic lids (lids must be separated)
• Yoghurt containers (but not the soft foil top)
• Plastic biscuit trays (but not the foil packaging)
• Aerosols and deodorants
• Glass bottles and jars (take metal lids off and place in a tin)
• Window envelopes (the window gets sieved out)
• Tetra packs in many areas including Auckland (except North Shore, Rodney and Waitakere) and Southland. Check with your council
• Broken bottles are okay in Auckland (except North Shore, Rodney and Waitakere), plus Thames, Coromandel, Cambridge, Waipa and Whangarei. Everywhere else, check with council

Sorry, that’s landfill (or find another use)

• Compostable coffee cups (designed to break down in landfill)
• Clothing (give it to the Sallies)
• Foil packaging like chip bags, etc
• Plastic toys (kerbside recycling is generally limited to plastics from the kitchen, bathroom and laundry)
• Ceramic items like old mugs or plates
• Pyrex, baking ware, window glass and windscreens (generally only glass used for food or drink packaging is recyclable)
• Pens (ink can leak onto other plastics and downgrade them)
• Batteries (see www.rubbishfree.co.nz for advice on battery disposal in NZ)
• Rubber (but there are outfits like Pacific Rubber who'll take it, see www.pacificrubber.co.nz)