Kerbside recycling on hold until level 2

Wellington’s kerbside recycling collection will remain on hold when New Zealand moves to alert level three on Tuesday, the city council says.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday that country would move from alert level four to level three for a minimum of two weeks from April 28, sparking questions about what that would mean for recycling.

The Wellington City Council said on Wednesday that its advice to residents was the same under both alert levels, and that the kerbside recycling collection would not resume.

That meant any recyclables other than clean glass jars and bottles and clean, dry cardboard should be put into general rubbish bags and put out for kerbside rubbish collection, which was still operating.

Contrary to initial advice, people should not stockpile recyclables. This was because they posed a health and safety risk and because the backlog could place too much pressure on the recycling system when the service resumed.

City councillor Laurie Foon, who holds the council’s waste minimisation portfolio, said clean glass and cardboard

Emily Taylor-Hall

Wellington City Council waste operations manager

could be put out with general rubbish, but only if people had no room at all to store it and it presented a safety hazard.

‘‘If you have space to stockpile, then those [clean glass and clean, dry cardboard] are the priority items.

‘‘If you don’t have room to store those items, because they become a hazard and you might fall over them in the night, for example, then the government advice is for you to put them in the rubbish.’’

Foon said she realised many people were diligent recyclers and would struggle to throw out their recyclables.

‘‘If you can, please use this time as a chance to keep trying to reduce the waste and recycling that you bring into your home,’’ she said.

‘‘For example, choosing packaging that you can put in your home compost, like paper and cardboard, or that you can keep and reuse [such as] glass, or simple packaging-reduction strategies like buying in bulk.’’

Some other cities around the country would be able to resume recycling under level three because they had electronic or automated systems to sort through items.

But Wellington’s recycling was sorted manually at a processing plant in Lower Hutt and that would remain closed until alert level two, because of health and safety risks.

‘‘The main reason kerbside recycling was postponed was that workers at the sorting facility wouldn’t have been able to keep the two-metre rule of physical distancing,’’ council waste operations manager Emily Taylor-Hall said.

‘‘There remain questions around how long the virus lasts on surfaces like cardboard and plastic ... These concerns still exist in level three and, as such, we have been advised that the sorting plant will remain closed.’’

The council initially advised people to stockpile clean recycling where possible, but subsequent advice from the Ministry for the Environment said that could present health and safety risks.

Stockpiled recycling could be put out for collection under alert level two, either in recycling bags or wheelie bins or in council-issued rubbish bags.

However, it was possible some recycling could end up in landfills because it had been contaminated or because the recycling plant was being overrun, the council said.

‘‘We have been advised that the sorting plant will remain closed.’’