Country’s ‘recycling’ illusion fading fast
For avid recyclers, recycling is starting to look like it was too good to be true.
As councils cast more plastic types to the landfill instead, is the recycling illusion over?
Wellington City Council is the latest to announce it will only accept plastics 1, 2 and 5 in its kerbside recycling – everything else will be sent to the tip.
Kerbside recycling, hailed an environmental saviour, was introduced to New Zealand in the 1990s and most Kiwis have diligently cleaned and sorted their plastic for the good of the environment.
Meanwhile, much of that plastic from the household recycling bin was being shipped to China.
In 2018, China stopped accepting the world’s recycling and councils started to send it to Southeast Asia instead, where it may have been cast into a mountain of waste in Malaysia or burnt in secret. Last year, councils all around the country started to cut down their kerbside collections to exclude those hard-to-recycle plastics as international markets dried up.
Earlier this year, a Ministry for the Environment spokeswoman said the international market for plastic remained a ‘‘legitimate’’ ongoing trade.
However, that goes against Wellington City Council’s view that the markets for recycling are ‘‘oversupplied and volatile’’.
The council has blamed ‘‘a changing global market’’ and a ‘‘glut in low-quality plastics’’ for the move. ‘‘Nationally and internationally, markets for these lower grade plastics are now nonexistent,’’ it said.
Landfills around the country are reaching their limits as councils redirect plastic to them. However, for the countries used to receiving New Zealand’s plastic it may be a relief.
Pua Lay Peng, visiting New Zealand for a series of public talks with Greenpeace in 2018, said her village in Malaysia had become a dumping ground for countries like New Zealand.
Peng would leave her home at
What cannot be recycled?
Some common examples of plastics numbered 3, 4, 6 and 7 which will not be accepted from July 20 in Wellington include:
❚ some biscuit trays;
❚ squeezable tomato sauce bottles;
❚ packaging for ham, pasta etc. What can be recycled?
Plastics numbered 1, 2 and 5 include:
❚ water, juice, soft drink and milk bottles;
❚ shampoo and cleaning products;
❚ large yoghurt containers and icecream tubs.
night to find plastic being burnt in secret open fires in her village.
Not all the plastic being shipped overseas by New Zealand is even recyclable, and Greenpeace have called it the "recycling myth’’ for years.
Hannah Blumhardt, an antiplastic campaigner for The Rubbish Trip, said recycling was not the solution because no type of plastic is ‘‘infinitely recyclable’’.
‘‘There is a disproportionate amount of responsibility falling on consumers.’’
For too long the difficult plastics have been the burden of ratepayers, she said.
Plastic number 4, soft plastics, has not been recyclable for years, and number 6 (polystyrene) has never been recyclable via kerbside collection in Wellington.
Number 7 is ‘‘a wild mix’’ of multiple plastic, so has always been difficult to recycle.
The biggest change for residents will be with plastic number 3 – which has become increasingly problematic over the last couple of years due to its ability to negatively influence the recycling of clear plastic number 1.
Blumhardt said she backed the councils’ move to stop shipping hard-to-recycle plastics overseas. But if New Zealand wants to recycle the plastic here, it could be waiting another decade – infrastructure isn’t likely to be built here until at least 2030. Until then, those landfill-bound plastics 3, 4, 6 and 7 are best avoided.
‘‘Ultimately, if we can’t deal with it onshore, we shouldn’t be using it.’’ that’s