Some folk rubbish at recycling
DIRTY nappies and cigarette butts are still finding their way into Dunedin’s recycling bins, despite the majority of residents doing the right thing.
Chip packets, plastic bags, coffee cups and polystyrene all might appear to be recyclable but if you have put any of those in your recycling bin lately you may have been left a note telling you to keep them out next time.
The Dunedin City Council is about four weeks into a 12week inspection pro gramme of the city’s recycling bins and results are mixed.
Tags are left on bins which have been inspected, green for correct recycling and orange for bins with some incorrect items.
Bins with red tags are not emptied, because they contained general household waste.
Council waste minimisation education and promotions officer Catherine Gledhill said about 1200 bins had been inspected since June and 70% of them were tagged green.
About a quarter of the bins contained material such as milk and juice cartons which could not be recycled at the Green Island recycling plant.
‘‘We’ve given them a yellow sticker which is effectively saying, ‘hey you’ve just got a couple of things wrong and this is what you need to remove for next time and you’ll be all right’,’’ Ms Gledhill said.
About 5% of bins contained household rubbish and items such as used nappies or cigarette butts, which were not collected, she said.
About 250 bins were rechecked and the rate of contamination declined to about 10%.
Inspectors did not go through bins item by item, but rather had a good look and used their sense of smell.
‘‘It’s usually pretty easy to tell the recycling bin is being used as a rubbish bin.’’ she said.
While most people knew cigarette butts or old clothing could not be recycled there were some materials such as soft plastics which could cause confusion, she said.
THERE is a growing movement in New Zealand to reduce the use of plastics in everyday life.
Supermarkets, for example, are trying to cut the use of ‘‘singleuse’’ plastic bags for packing groceries. This is laudable because these plastic bags are turning up in all sorts of undesirable places. However, as a result some customers are buying disposable plastic bags to line kitchen rubbish bins instead of the grocery bags.
Cafes are encouraging customers to bring reusable cups, even often offering a discount for the use of such vessels. And cosmetic manufacturers are getting rid of those microbeads which are causing so much damage to smaller sealife around the shores of New Zealand.
Gripping pictures of sealife wearing plastic bags tear at the hearts of many wellmeaning New Zealanders. Most understand the damage plastic can do to the environment and its animals. But do they understand how change can be implemented?
In Oamaru, there may be hope for a partial solution. A Dunedin company, Polybuild, is considering Oamaru’s resource recovery park to build a research and development site.
Using even lowgrade plastics, the company says it will produce building materials. The materials used will include lowdensity polyethylene, used in bottles, shopping bags and plastic wraps, polypropylene, furniture, luggage, toys, polystyrene, hardpacking, refrigerator trays and CD cases.
The technology was pioneered in Russia and has been used in smallscale operations inter nationally. But if it can be produced on a large scale, it will be a win for New Zealand.
The majority of the 300 million tonnes of plastic produced every year is not recycled and, when recycling does happen, it is typically at an industrial scale in factories using equipment that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. But a growing number of designers are using a set of opensource, easytobuild tools to recycle plastic and manufacture new plastic products on their own.
Any internet search uncovers plenty of tips for recycling things such as soft drink bottles, tips that make barely a dent in the amount of waste generated by households.
Plastic cannot be avoided in everyday life. Polybuild says in North Otago, it will be designing and manufacturing products it intends going into building houses. The recycling arriving in Oamaru is so clean there is no need for a washing plant.
The increased use in recycling comes as China begins rejecting recycling from other countries.
New Zealand previously shipped millions of kilograms of waste to Chinese processing plants each year. But China’s recently introduced ban on 24 types of foreign waste has forced recyclers to look for buyers elsewhere, mainly in Southeast Asia.
Most of it was mixed paper and mixed plastics, not recycled locally the way other recyclables, like glass, aluminium and cardboard, are.
China has stopped being the rubbish tip of the world. China’s withdrawal as the world’s repository for plastic waste also lays bare the notion the disposable plastic conscientiously put into a taxpayerfinanced recycling bin is actually being recycled. Now, with China’s door closed, much of that recycled plastic is likely ending up at a local landfill. China’s new policy may displace as much as 111 million metric tonnes of plastic waste by 2030.
Support in some way for Polybuild is essential, preferably through Government business funding. Government endorsement for such a project will pique interest. New Zealand has a housing crisis and KiwiBuild is not going close to fixing it. The use of recycled plastic drink bottles for home insulation is already widespread.
Widening the use further to building blocks, if possible, can help reduce waste and provide another option for home builders.