Kia ora to the fantastic recycling community of Ngaio and Crofton Downs,
Thank you all so much for your mahi in recycling so much material over the last few years. We have been keeping a record of what has been collected, and soon the Sustainability Trust website will have a page where you can see how much has gone through our collection station.
Now however, I want to let everyone know that there has been significant and welcome change to the recycling of plastic lids. There is good reason, which I explain below, but first the changes.
We are now accepting ALL plastic lids and caps and there is no need to separate by plastic type, or to check that they are recycle type 2 or 5. These lids and caps can also be unnumbered, the only catch is they need to be a lid or a cap.
We have been collecting other items with the lids and caps, such as pill pots, contact lens cases, and laundry scoops We will continue to take these, but they still need to be separated out for processing.
Items other than lids and caps
- Must still be labelled as a #2 or #5 type plastic
- Must be separated into #2 and #5
- Must be clean
You can find out more on Te Aro Zero Waste’s updated Plastic and Metal Recycling webpage.
Why this change – and why only caps and lids?
The reason for this change is the Caps and Lids Recycling Scheme which is an industry-funded programme operated by the Packaging Forum, and designed to ensure as many metal and plastic caps and lids as possible are diverted from landfill (more info here). This funding is however only for caps and lids, so other items need to be processed separately. These items will still be sent to the processors who took No2 and No5 plastics in the past, and need to be separated to avoid contamination at processing and consequently a lower quality product.