Kerbside Recycling

Until now, Whanganui has been one of the last cities in New Zealand not to have a council kerbside recycling program. Our community has told us that needs to change – with nearly 70% of residents supporting a council-funded kerbside recycling collection service.

Currently, more than half the material the average household in Whanganui sends to landfill could actually be recycled or composted* (based on waste audits of kerbside general waste bins).

As well as costing you money, sending recyclable materials to landfill is extremely wasteful – both economically and environmentally. 

Households in the service area will soon receive a set of three 50-litre black crates to put recycling in.

Each crate can only contain one of the following groups of recyclable material:

• Plastics 1, 2, 5 & cans
• Paper & cardboard
• Glass bottles & jars

Any crate, just separate!

If you need to, you can use more than one crate for one of the groups. For instance, if you had a bit of a party and were left with a lot of glass bottles – you could use two crates for glass that week. 

However, that would mean you could only put one other group in your third crate (i.e. only paper & cardboard). So, in that instance, you’d have to wait for the following week to recycle your plastic & cans.

The key thing to remember is you cannot put a mix of different groups in the same crate. If you put a mix of groups in one crate, that crate won’t be picked up.

Before putting your recycling in the crates

There’s three important steps to follow before you put your recycling into the crates. You must:

• rinse out jars, bottles and cans (and remove any food or liquid)
• remove bottle caps and jar lids (these can’t be recycled)
• flatten out any cardboard boxes.

Placing crates at kerbside

Place your recycling out at the kerbside by 7am on your collection day. Place crates as close to the kerb edge as possible; not in the middle of the footpath.

The crates are designed to be stackable – so if it’s a windy day, it’s a good idea to place your heaviest crate (i.e. the crate with glass) on top of the lighter crates (especially paper & cardboard).

We’ve decided to use crates for our kerbside recycling service because they are the most effective system to reduce contamination and ensure we’re recycling correctly.

In recycling terms, contamination is when things that can’t be recycled are included with your recycling. This has been a really big problem for recycling services across New Zealand – and it makes sorting recycling much more difficult and expensive.

With our three-crate system, recyclable materials should already be sorted into groups when we collect them from kerbside – and unlike a wheelie bin (where you can’t see the contents), we’ll be able to quickly identify incorrect items and prevent contamination.