Residents take hard line on soft plastics
North Auckland shoppers are among the top in the city for helping to increase Auckland’s soft plastic recycling efforts.
Residents in the Glenfield, New Lynn, Birkenhead and Albany areas are engaging with the Love NZ Soft Plastics programme to keep soft plastics out of landfill.
The areas were in the top four, respectively, for producing the most bags of recycling collected at Pak ‘n Save and New World outlets.
More than 130 of the city’s stores take part in the scheme an initiative which sees green bins placed at retail outlets, taking all types of soft plastic packaging not able to be recycled in the normal council collection.
That’s pretty much anything plastic that can be scrunched up - bread bags, biscuit and chip packets, toilet paper wrapping, and of course, plastic bags.
From 2016 to 2017, the programme has seen double the amount of soft plastic waste collected nationwide from 119 tonnes to 367 tonnes.
Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme manager Lyn Mayes said expansion of the programme and residents realising what it was about had helped.
‘‘Volumes are going up week on week, and people’s awareness about what they can recycle is improving.
‘‘People at the start thought it was about plastic carrier bags they now realise it’s about a whole range of soft plastic packaging.’’
The programme has been running since November 2015 and is funded by around 50 brands that use soft plastics, and retailers. Each store involved in the programme pays for their collection bin and contributes to its weekly servicing costs.
Once collected, plastic is delivered to Replas in Melbourne, Australia, a company which produces recycled plastic products. Trials are currently being run with New Zealandbased processors.
219 Don McKinnon Drive, Albany Constellation & Parkway Drive, Rosedale
Royal Rd & Royal Heights, Massey
7 Fred Taylor Drive, NorthWest Shopping Centre, Massey
Westgate City Centre, Fernhill Drive, Massey 17-19 Fred Taylor Drive, Massey