From rubbish to recycling
A New Plymouth cafe that overlooks a city stream is a perfect place to grab a coffee – and drop off your old toothbrushes.
Green Door Cafe is one of many doing their bit in a different way to push Taranaki toward its zero waste 2040 goal.
Coffee capsules, lightbulbs, polystyrene and oral waste are among the things usually thrown in the bin because people don’t know there is an alternative.
And with the roll-out of the new rub- bish regime in New Plymouth, Zero Waste Taranaki have highlighted ways of cutting down what we throw away.
New Plymouth’s Green Door Cafe has a box for old toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and floss containers, with environmental group Taranaki Conservationists tasked with collecting the box when it is full.
Cafe co-owner Ron Forrester admitted he was not completely aware of what he was agreeing to when the organisation first approached him.
The old toothbrushes are part of international recyclers TerraCycle’s oral care programme that sees them cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remoulded to make new products.
Forrester said the cafe always tried to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
While most know about food scraps and compost, there are plenty of other things that don’t need to go into the landfill too or 64 alternatives, according to the New Plymouth District Council website, to be precise. Tips included on the list are that energysaver lightbulbs can be recycled at Ha¯wera Bunnings; computers, gaming consoles and mobile phones can be sent to Recycling for Charity and leftover paint can go to Paintwise through the New Plymouth Resene Colorshop.
Among other ideas listed on the website include a residential address in Fitzroy where certain coffee capsules and oral waste can be dropped off, while a Beststart South Preschool in Ha¯ wera and Makahu School in eastern Taranaki take toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes and floss containers too.
Plus, Okato Playcentre takes old stationery, while Eltham’s Rawhitiroa School and Stratford’s Avon Kindergarten take oral waste, cling wrap, bags and containers and dispensers.
New Plymouth District Council resource recovery manager Kimberley Hope said keeping extra items out of landfill could become easier with plans to open a new reuse and recycling centre, called The Junction, in early 2020.