Soft plastics recycling arrives
A recycling solution for soft plastics has finally arrived in Wellington.
Bins for soft plastics - anything from plastic bags to chip packets - have been installed at 56 stores and supermarkets from Otaki to Wellington in a launch by the Packaging Forum and Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith.
Every Countdown, Pak’n Save, Warehouse, New World and Moore Wilson’s across the region is now equipped with a special bin for soft plastics.
The launch comes months after a city council debacle over plastic bags.
In April, news broke that plastic bags and other soft packaging were not being recycled alongside hard plastics, despite council instructions for residents to include soft plastics in their household recycling. The council said lack of capacity at its recycling plants meant plastic bags simply couldn’t be recycled.
The launch in Wellington was part of a national partnership with the retail sector and packaging industry, Smith said.
The plastic is shipped to Replas in Melbourne, where it is melted down and recycled into park benches, bollards, and outdoor furniture.
Replas chief executive Mark McClafferty said the melted plastic was put through a ’’spaghetti head’’, then it could be moulded into other things.
The plastic bollards were especially useful in places such as Rotorua, where sulfur eroded traditional wooden infrastructure, he said.
Roughly 15,000 plastic bags were recycled into a park bench, donated to Wellington Zoo as part of the launch.
The initiative is funded through grants of $700,000 to the Packaging Forum and $510,000 to Astron Plastics Group from the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund. The recycling service has already been rolled out in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch.