Saturday 7 February 2026 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 reminders to make the programme more enjoyable for the volunteers:
How to recycle with us: Just bring your recycling down to us between 10am and 12 noon, at Ngaio Union Church in Crofton Road. It is quicker for you if your collection is sorted before you arrive.
The list of the things we recycle is below – and we have a couple of guidance points or requests:
- Plastic caps – anything that is a plastic lid or cap is accepted, any type of plastic and no sorting by plastic type is required.
- Type 2 and type 5 plastic items – these must have the recycling symbol on them with the correct number. They must be seperated into the two collections, as they are sent to two different processing streams.
- Tetrapacks – these must be opened flat, clean and dry. This is how the processor wants to collect them, to avoid contamination. We are now insisting on this as it is surprising how many that are not opened flat, are hiding an unpleasant surpise inside.
Koha – the service is free – but we do have a Koha collection. All Koha is being put back into recycling, and pays for either tip fees or Terracycle boxes for the blister packs. Please note that the WCC collection for items like car and household batteries is at the city landfill transfer station, and there is a fee for drop off. The boxes in which we send the blister packs to Terracycle cost $430 (see https://shop.terracycle.com)
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. We can also include aluminium foil or baking trays in this collection, but please scruch them into a tight ball, which helps with smelting.
- Tetrapacks – opened flat, rinsed and dry
- 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 are taken to the Nespresso recycling on Lambton Quay
- Empty medicinal blister packs
- 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 2026, follow this link – Recycling Schedule for 2026: