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.