Kerbside recycling off to a crate start
Published on 17 July 2024
Whanganui District Council’s waste team says the city’s new kerbside recycling service is off to a great start, with nearly 80 tonnes of recycling collected over the first two weeks and households generally doing an impressive job of sorting their recycling and avoiding contamination.
The council’s general manager, community property and places, Sarah O’Hagan, says it’s been brilliant to see how many people have put in the effort to clean and separate their recycling well.
“Based on information from other councils that have rolled out services like this, we expected the first few weeks – if not months – to be quite hectic as the community got their heads around the new system. But we must be pretty smart cookies in Whanganui, because by and large households have got it right from day dot.”
Sarah O’Hagan says the only issues of note that have cropped up here and there were people attempting to recycle lids and stacking their crates too high.
“We get it that the lids thing is confusing. For years we’d been taught it’s fine to recycle plastic lids – and that’s only changed very recently following new Ministry for the Environment rules for kerbside recycling. But even in the second week, we found most people had quickly adjusted (presumably after finding their lids left behind in week one).”
Sarah O’Hagan says the decision from the Ministry for the Environment to change guidelines around all lids was due to recycling processing plants sometimes having issues with lids falling into machinery due to their thinness.
“Basically, this means you can’t recycle any lids at kerbside. The only exception to that rule is with tin can lids. It is okay to recycle tin can lids as long as the lid is still attached to the can and is folded back into the can (for safety).”
The other minor issue is around how people stack their crates at kerbside – with a few instances of crates toppling after being stacked three-high.
“Again, this is understandable, as we’ve been encouraging people to stack their heaviest crate over their lightest one on windy days. However, people should only stack two crates high – not all three – and the bottom crate shouldn’t be too full. Your recycling crates shouldn’t look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa!”
As well as being impressed by the efforts of the community, Sarah O’Hagan says the council has been very pleased by how smoothly things have been running in terms of the collection service.
“The team at Low Cost Bins has been fantastic to work with so far and the feedback we’re getting from the community is that they’re out and about with smiles on their faces doing a great job – despite the icy weather. We’ve had very few complaints or reports of missed collections, so that’s really encouraging.”
For more information on all things kerbside recycling, visit whanganui.govt.nz/recycling