Public issues

Recycling

Updated: 06 Mar 2008
Recycling-hero

Introduction

Have we finally got the message? Recycling rates are on the increase in New Zealand.

Statistics show that recycling is increasing and solid waste sent to landfills is decreasing. We've taken a closer look at what's going on, what the government is doing, and what you can do to improve your own recycling rates.

Reading the statistics

Environmentalists might have reason to smile. In November 2007, the Packaging Council announced that 57 percent of New Zealand's packaging was recycled between July 2006 and June 2007. That's a 20 percent increase on the previous year.

And the government's most recent state-of-the-environment report shows improvements too. The Ministry for the Environment estimates that 2.4 million tonnes of waste is diverted from landfills every year. The overall amount of solid waste sent to landfills has dropped slightly from an estimated 3.180 million tonnes in 1995 to 3.156 million tonnes in 2006 - despite an increase in our population.

Don't get too comfortable

So is the tide turning in the war against waste? We're not too sure. Our statistics on recycling and waste trends are a mishmash of estimates and actual figures. That's because a combination of public and private organisations deal with our waste.

We asked Christchurch City Council (a council that's reputed to keep good records on public waste) whether or not our rate of recycling was outstripping the amount of waste being sent to the landfill.

The statistics indicate recycling is on the increase in Christchurch and waste is falling slightly (see the graph below). But it's hard to find two figures that show a direct comparison between the amount of waste sent to the landfill and the amount recycled.

Council figures show that for every person in Christchurch City in 2006/07, an average of 321kg of household waste was sent to landfills. In contrast an average of 76kg of recyclable materials was collected by council kerbside recycling services. These are one council's figures for household rubbish only, but they suggest there's still a big gap between the amount of waste sent to landfills and the amount being recycled.

Government incentives

The Ministry for the Environment began looking at economic incentives to improve recycling in 2002. At the time, taxes and levies on waste were being imposed by other countries. But the ministry opted for voluntary recycling.

In 2006, the previous Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released a critical report on the waste-minimisation policies of the ministry. The Commissioner said the New Zealand Waste Strategy had identified taxes and levies as a way of reducing waste. "But the ministry has failed to pursue these. The strategy was cooperatively developed, so this failure undermines the whole process of democratic engagement with government."

Late last year, the government released a set of proposals (see below). One of these is a national waste levy on materials that go to landfills. The proposals are tied to new legislation - the Green Party's Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill. There may be amendments to the draft Bill before Parliament votes on it this year.

Carrots and sticks

Some of the Government's main proposals to reduce waste include:

  • Solid-waste levy: To be set at $10 per tonne, this will help persuade people and organisations not to dump discards that could be recycled.

  • Better public recycling facilities: The government has allocated $4.6 million over a three-year period to establish a public recycling programme - including 600 new public recycling bins.

  • Product stewardship schemes: Product stewardship schemes make manufacturers, retailers and consumers responsible for the waste created by their products. The ministry plans to make product stewardship schemes compulsory for harmful waste (like used oil) first.

  • Data: Accurate information is essential for assessing the success (or failure) of waste-reduction policies. The ministry wants greater access to public and private statistics on waste.

  • Governance: The ministry will administer the national waste levy, manage product stewardship schemes, and decide what materials and products should be banned from disposal in landfills. A new waste advisory board will advise the ministry.


Mapping a new direction

The government's waste-minimisation proposals are a new direction for the way we handle waste - and many organisations have made submissions to the Select Committee considering the Bill.

Submissions closely reflect the interests of individual organisations. For example, the Packaging Council isn't convinced that the waste levy or mandatory product stewardship schemes are necessary. The Council favours voluntary initiatives because they're less burdensome on manufacturers and retailers.

Zero Waste (an environmental organisation) supports the proposals but thinks they need to be stronger. CEO Jo Knight wants the waste levy to be increased over time, until it reaches a level where people find it more attractive to divert waste from landfills. Knight also hopes the new waste authority will be independent of the ministry (on similar lines to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority).

All the organisations we spoke to support the intent of the proposals - New Zealand needs to do more to reduce waste - but opinions differed on how best to achieve that goal.

Why recycle?

The most valuable benefit of recycling is reduction in energy use.

It takes huge amounts of electricity to create raw materials like aluminium. The aluminium smelter at Bluff uses 13 percent of New Zealand's electricity. Recycling aluminium can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95 percent. The Economist magazine says that savings for other materials are lower but still worthwhile: about 70 percent for plastics, 60 percent for steel, 40 percent for paper, and 30 percent for glass.

So recycling existing materials is vital if we're to reduce our energy use - something New Zealand needs to do to meet its Kyoto Protocol obligations. If we can't cut back on our greenhouse gas emissions, then we'll need to buy costly carbon credits on the international market.

An international study shows the benefits of recycling. The Technical University of Denmark reviewed the life-cycles of 55 products. The researchers compared the impact of burying, burning or recycling the products in 200 different situations. They found that in 83 percent of cases recycling was better for the environment.

How do we improve?

Simplicity: We voluntarily recycle, so it helps to make it as simple as possible. Originally, kerbside recycling asked people to put paper, glass, plastic and cans into separate piles. Many schemes are now shifting to "single stream" collection (see Kerbside recycling rules), where you can place all recyclables into one bag or bin. Single-stream collection encourages higher levels of domestic recycling.

Technology: Whether or not your council has switched to single-stream recycling depends partly on the technology available. Around the world new techniques can identify and split materials with little or no human intervention. That type of technology is starting to appear here.

Recyclers of New Zealand (RONZ) chair Bruce Gledhill says: "The current trend towards fully co-mingled collections in New Zealand is benefiting from the 20-year evolution of such systems and plants overseas. As a result, the plants coming into existence here are at the cutting edge of technology."

New technology has solved many of the problems with commercial recycling. For instance, where PVC was once burnt off electrical wiring - creating a harmful greenhouse gas called dioxin - it's now removed through breaking up the covering.

Gledhill talks of "discards" rather than waste. He says: "a landfill should be designed and operated as a mid-term repository, a place where today's discards are 'stored' so that, when a new resource-recovery technology becomes viable, the discards can be mined and the value unlocked."

Timaru District Council - Doing the three-step

Timaru has taken a lead in recycling that shows what can be done. In 2006, the Timaru District Council replaced residential wheelie bins with a three-bin system. Residents were asked to sort their waste at home into:

  • a 240L bin for recyclables collected fortnightly
  • a 140L bin for rubbish collected fortnightly
  • a 240L bin for organic material collected weekly.

In one year Timaru reduced kerbside-collected rubbish going to the landfill by 67 percent. Currently, 75 percent of the collected "waste" doesn't go to the landfill. Mayor Janie Annear (pictured right) says:

"At first, people were surprised by the amount of material that's recyclable. A year on, the concept of separating waste from recyclables is now second-nature."

Kerbside recycling rules

Recycling is good - but buying products with re-usable or less packaging is better.

  • 1. Find out what your local council can and can't recycle (most have a guide to regional recycling on their websites). Remember that recycling technologies improve rapidly - you might now be able to recycle some discards that you previously couldn't. Most areas recycle:

    *bottles and jars (but not drinking glasses, mugs, or window glass)
    *clean paper and cardboard
    *aluminium and steel cans
    *grade one and two plastics (look on the bottom of the container for the number to see what type it is).

  • 2. Make recycling easy to do:

    *Place a list of recyclable items on your fridge.
    *Keep a recycling bin next to your rubbish bin.
    *Recycle as you go to save time and hassle when rubbish day rolls around.

  • 3. Rinse bottles and cans before you chuck them in the recycling bin. Remember that recycling collectors will have to deal with your discards in the morning. Maggots and curdled milk aren't pleasant.

  • 4. Know your plastics. There are six main grades of plastic used in packaging. With few exceptions, grade one and two plastics are recycled from kerbsides. Some councils are now beginning to recycle plastics from one through to five. For a full list of plastics and their properties, check out www.plastics.org.nz.

  • 5. Let it rot. Organic waste breaks down very slowly in landfills. So it's best to compost your kitchen scraps. You'll be surprised at what's compostable (for instance, paper, sawdust, straw, leaves, cereal boxes, cardboard, and napkins). A good starting point if you want to compost at home is www.sustainability.govt.nz.


What happens to your recycling?

What happens to a milk container after you've chucked it in the recycling bin? We followed one to the Allbrite recycling plant in Lower Hutt:

Collected: The milk container is collected by kerbside recyclers. The collectors sort the milk containers into one section of the recycling truck.

Weighed: On arrival at the recycling plant, the truck is weighed on a weighbridge. It then tips aluminium cans and plastics alongside one conveyor belt and is weighed again. The weight of each recyclable is recorded as it's off-loaded.

Sorted: Plastics, glass and metals are fed on to a conveyor belt. Glass is sorted by colours and a magnet draws out metals (tin cans). Different grades of plastic are plucked out by hand and sorted into separate bays. Milk containers are sorted into a bay for high density polyethylene (HDPE). Across the factory floor, another conveyor belt moves paper and cardboard. Each conveyor belt is manned by about six sorters.

Baled and exported: Sorted milk containers are crushed and baled into 250kg bales. The bales are left at the end of the plant awaiting export. HDPE is shipped from the Allbrite plant to countries like Vietnam, India and the Phillippines (developing economies are huge consumers of raw materials).

Reprocessed: Milk containers are shredded into flakes and washed. The dry flakes are granulated and then squeezed and moulded into pellets to form the raw material for new products.


Our view

  • We support the ministry's push for accurate reporting from both public and private landfill operators. But we agree with Recyclers of New Zealand (RONZ) that a central agency, rather than regional authorities, should collect the commercially sensitive data.

  • Before the national levy is applied, council-managed landfills should start to charge users the true cost of waste disposal (including the environmental impact, the cost of managing waste in a landfill and so on).

  • Most people's environmental conscience only goes so far. Recycling facilities need to be nearby and easy to use. That's not just the government's responsibility. Whether you're a homeowner or employer, you'll find the amount of waste you throw away is reduced if you make recycling easier to do (see Kerbside recycling rules).


More information


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Report by Luke Harrison