Ngaio Crofton Downs Residents Association

We are moving towards only accepting tetrapaks which have been opened flat and rinsed. This is due to the state of some cartons that we have been receiving, opening them up makes rinsing so much easier, and this is what the recyclers are asking for.

Transporting liquid in tetrapaks to the Hamilton factory adds unnecessary weight, and downgrades the quality of the end product.

Here’s a helpful video from Hamilton City Council (it refers to Hamilton drop off points – Ngaio Union Church is your local drop off point, 10 to 12pm. first Saturday of each month).

The Ngaio Community Picnic is going to be held on 23 March 2025, from 12 until 3pm, at Huntleigh Park. This is an event that is co-organised with Ngaio Crofton Downs Residents Association, and Ngaio Playcenter.

This year we will have the normal entertainment, games and stalls. But we are also tying in with WCC with bike rides and treasure hunts – all part of our efforts to get people out of cars and into active transport.

The Ngaio Climate Crew will be there too (see Ngaio Climate Crew, and Wellington suburbs eye a world first in climate action), visit us to see about joining.

Keep your eye out – promotions are about to hit, with details on how to get involved, and register for the rides.

This month we avoided sending to landfill:
– 29kg of tetrapaks
– 32kg of plastic lids
– 21kg of metal lid
– 12.5kg of batteries
– 1.8kg Colgate packaging
– 1.9kg of medecine blister packs
– 3.7 kg of Nespresso pods

Thats a lot of individual items! How many? – this many.

From this month (Saturday 1 February), we are going to run a trial to see what demand there is for recycling the blister packs used for packaging tablets. If you have blister packs at home waiting for a solution – this will be your solution!

Bring along the blister packs to our recycling at Ngaio Union Church, Saturday 1 February from 10am to 12 noon.

Please remove the outer cardboard box, and make sure there is no identifying personal information on them.

There is a cost for recycling blister packs, so we want to test the demand before committing to ongoing recycling.

The second guided bike ride is now open for bookings.

Wellington City Council, Ngaio Going Carbon Neutral and Pedal Ready are teaming up to run social bike tours of the recent street changes in Ngaio and the surrounding area. Build confidence and skills to travel safely and efficiently by paihikara (bike) while getting to know the bike improvements in Ngaio!

The ride will finish at Ngaio Union Church, where there will be the monthly Repair Cafe that runs till 1pm for those who want to attend. A good excuse to bring a friend and get your belongings repaired!

Please allow 2 hours for the ride. Arrive 30 minutes early if you are renting a bike.

The link for this event for more info and booking is Welly On Wheels Ngaio – Confidence & Skills for Biking – Wellington – Eventfinda

Saturday 1 February will be our first recycling day of the year – 10am to noon at Ngaio Union Church, Crofton Road.

Below is a refresher on the items that we collect, and a couple of requests to make the programme more enjoyable for the volunteers:

How to recycle with us

What we take each month includes:

• All plastic lids together – no need to separate into different plastic types – but must be lids or caps only.
• Small plastic items marked with the type 2 recycling symbol, and separated.
• Small plastic items marked with the type 5 recycling symbol, and separated.
• Metal Lids etc –including for eg Crown caps, metal screw tops, sparkling wine wires, metal jar lids, ring-pull caps.
• Household and hearing aid batteries.
• Oral care products and packaging from Colgate (is sent back to Colgate). Does not include electric toothbrush heads).
• Used shaving products – please no safety blades at this stage, they are dangerous.
• Curtains – must be mould free so they can be re-purposed.
• Wool – balls of wool which Crafty Volunteers, can use in their knitting for charity.
• Aluminium coffee pods from Nespresso – these re taken to the Nespresso recycling on Lambton Quay
• Rubber bands from delivered The Posts – which are returned to The Post

Additional Collections

Each month we have one additional collection so plan ahead for these collections for the rest of the year. The February collection will be of other small metal items. To see the complete schedule for 2024, follow this link – Recycling Schedule for 2025:

Each month this year at our recycling collections, we will also have a collection of other items that we will collect. We don’t collect these items each month to make management of the programme more simple, and make our drop off to the recycling stations more efficient.

Below are the additional items that we will be collecting each month, and the dates (first Saturday each month):

Wellington City Council, Ngaio Going Carbon Neutral and Pedal Ready are teaming up to run social bike tours of the recent street changes in Ngaio and the surrounding area.

Build confidence and skills to travel safely and efficiently by paihikara (bike) while getting to know the bike improvements in Ngaio!

The first of the Ngaio guided rides is now live! Happening on Friday the 24^th of January, 4.30 to 6.30pm, finishing up at the Ngaio Union Church for a BBQ and boardgames! You can find the more info on the event registration page:

Welly On Wheels Ngaio – Confidence & Skills for Biking – Wellington – Eventfinda

And the facebook event here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/18LLQQmNYc

A quick reminder to everyone who has the monthly recycling ingrained as a habit – that we miss out the first Saturday of January.

Our next recycling day is Saturday 1 February 2025.

Look out for a post soon, that will recap the changes that happened late last year, and will provide the schedule of irregular collections of “other” items.

Happy recycling
Ian