Creativity urged on recycling

WELLINGTON: Recycling is among services that have been put on hold by several councils, but that has left householders wondering what to do with everincreasing piles of paper and plastic.

Residents are being urged to hang on to the materials until service is resumed, but many do not have the space to keep four weeks’ worth of cardboard and glass in their homes, and throwing it all into the landfill instead raises issues in its own right. So, what can you do to help out? There are infinite possibilities for your recycling. All you need is a bit of spare time on your hands, and a few spare materials lying around the house.

A glass jar is a future terrarium. A plastic bottle is a bug hotel in waiting. A cardboard box is crying out to be the seeds of the garden’s new flower bed.

Educator at Wellington’s Sustainability Trust Caroline Arrowsmith has other ideas as well.

‘‘With jars for example, I’d encourage people to look into doing things like making jam and chutney, preserves, [and] things like that. Or [you can] use them to store their spices or their dry goods.’’

‘‘You can use them to infuse oil or vinegar,’’ she said. ‘‘Fill them with a nice oil or vinegar, put in sprigs of herbs or chillies or garlic.’’

Kids bored at home? Get them involved.

‘‘People can get really creative with their recycling, and make sculptures or costumes. With World of Wearable Arts cancelled this year, maybe we could have a World of Wearable Waste.’’

Understandably, not everyone has the space to keep four weeks’ worth of recyclable products, so instead, the message is to prioritise: keep hold of the most valuable items which are glass, cardboard and PET plastic.

Wellington’s waste operations manager, Emily TaylorHall, said that is so when the service resumes, councils are not overwhelmed by an influx of recycling, which they then cannot process.

‘‘Obviously, we need to consider, when we start collection, we need to look at the ability of the sorting facility to process a month’s worth of recycling on day one of reopening.

‘‘We want to focus on processing the really highvalue recyclables.’’

Wellington City councillor Tamatha Paul, who looks after the climate change portfolio, is joining in the calls for people to stockpile.

She said we still need to continue trying to reduce our footprint.

‘‘The environment can’t take the backburner during all crises — that’s just not going to work and it’s just going to make our transition costs even more expensive.’’

Now is the perfect time to look to move to zerowaste products, she said.

‘‘Especially given people are going into overdrive with getting their sanitiser and their soap — there are zerowaste options out there, and they are affordable, and they can still be shipped, and they are shipped in zerowaste packaging.’’

The country’s only glass furnace, based in Auckland, makes around 85,000 bottles per hour, per day. About 70% of these bottles are made using recycled glass.

Dominic Salmon is the manager for the Glass Packaging Forum — the organisation that collects the recycled glass and drops it off at the furnace.

He said the more recycled glass they can use, the better it is for the environment.

‘‘Recycled glass replaces virgin material. So it’s a really good way of reducing your environmental footprint.

‘‘The more virgin material we use, the higher the carbon footprint, the more energy we use, whereas recycled glass has a much lower footprint.’’

The Wellington City Council said they don’t know when recycling services will resume — they are awaiting direction from the Government around when the lockdown will end, and which alert level the country will return to.

In the meantime, people are being urged: hold on to it, prioritise the most valuable items, and if you are feeling creative, repurpose that recycling. — RNZ