Getting your recycling right
Audits of Waipa¯’s yellow recycling bins have been underway, and initial results suggest not everyone is getting it right.
To date Council’s contractor has completed a total of 391 yellow recycling bin audits in Cambridge and Te Awamutu.
The full report is not yet available, but the initial finding is that 43 bins were non-compliant.
That equates to 11 per cent, or one-in-nine bins of material across the district that cannot be recycled.
At the 2013 census Waipa¯ had 17,667 occupied households and a population of 46,944.
Not all 2018 Census data is available, but the population in Waipa¯ has grown over 15 per cent to 54,123 which means it is safe to say the number of households has also increased to about 20,300.
That means over 2200 households are not recycling correctly.
The contractor reports the main issue with these bins was over-filling or the inclusion of soft or unidentified plastics.
During the Christmas/ New Year holiday there was also a spike in non-compliant material and contamination such as clothes, pizza boxes, packing material and general rubbish.
Council ran a major public awareness campaign for the introduction of the new recycling service last year, where it was explained that the success of the programme relied on the public playing its part.
Residents have a 240-litre yellow bin for plastics 1-7, tins, cans, paper and cardboard and a 140-litre blue bin for glass bottles and jars.
One of the projects to help reduce waste, and make sure we are recycling correctly, was an online recycling game designed to be fun and educational.
The game tests people’s knowledge on what goes into which wheelie bin and what must go into the separate private rubbish to minimise contamination as much as possible.
Potentially when nonrecyclable items get mixed in with recycling it could result in an entire truckload of recycling going to landfill.
If wrong recycling items get mixed it could also result in the load going to landfill.
For example, if broken glass is mixed in with the plastics it is difficult to separate and dangerous for workers at the sorting plant
Contaminated recycling was also worth less on the global market and it therefore would ultimately cost the ratepayers more to run the service.
■ The game is available at recyclewaipa.co.nz and there are also links to find other useful recycling information.