Make Your Recycling Great

Yellow recycling bins

• Rinse all containers and bottles – dirty ones can’t be recycled.
• Put only cardboard, flat paper, tin and aluminium cans, and plastic containers 1, 2 and 5 (check the triangle) in the recycling bin.
• Remove lids and place lids in the red landfill bin.
• Remember: landfill waste – including soft plastics, polystyrene, takeaway cups and lids, cartons and nappies – go in the red landfill bin.
• Green waste, including grass clippings and branches, does not go in the yellow recycling or red landfill bins

Non-recyclable items in our recycling bins can contaminate an entire truck-load. To make sure that loads can still be recycled, our bin auditor and drivers will be spot-checking bins.

Please make sure all glass is placed in the blue glass crate.

Blue glass crates

• Please don’t load glass above the edge of the blue crate (this is for the safety of our collectors.)
• Remove lids and place lids in the red landfill bin.

Food scraps bins (NPDC)

To help keep your bin fresh, line the bin with newspaper or cabbage leaves. You can wrap food scraps in newspaper, and even freeze the scraps until collection day.

Accepted scraps include:

• Any type of food (including bones, meat, fat and egg shells).
• Coffee grounds, tea leaves and paper tea bags.
• Indoor cut flowers.
• Kitchen paper towels.

Do not put into your food scraps bin:

• Any plastic bags and liners, including compostable bags.
• Compostable coffee cups, containers or packaging.
• Green waste.
• Tissues and bathroom paper towels (for hygiene reasons).

Why only plastics 1, 2 or 5?

Due to a changing global market, the Taranaki region only accept for recycling plastic containers 1, 2 & 5. There is no market for the other plastics (3, 4 ,6, 7) and a high carbon cost freighting these abroad. Plastics 1, 2 & 5 make up 87% of our residential recyclable plastics in New Zealand. In Taranaki, plastic types 1 & 2 make up 11% of the total recycling stream (paper, cardboard, plastics, tin and aluminium) and mixed plastics (types 3-7) make up 3%.The good news is these high grade plastics 1, 2 and 5 are recycled into new products by companies in New Zealand.

Common examples of plastic containers 1, 2 & 5 are:

• Plastics 1 - soft drink/water/fruit juice bottles, cooking oil bottles, fruit containers/punnets, sandwich packaging.
• Plastics 2 - milk bottles, cleaning product and shampoo bottles.
• Plastics 5 – large yoghurt containers, margarine/butter tubs, takeaway containers, ice cream containers.

Check the triangle when shopping – choose packaging displaying the numbers 1, 2 & 5. If in doubt, leave it out of your shopping or find an alternative. Have a look at some of the videos below for more recycling and waste minimisation tips.

Zero Waste Tips with Rosie Videos

• Easy recycling sorting at home here
• Avoiding plastic at the supermarket here
• As easy as 1,2 5 here
• Two good choices while shopping here
• Zero waste lunches here
• How to avoid food waste over summer here
• How to find alternative recycling options  here
• Explore The Junction - Zero waste hub here
• Refillable containers at The Junction here
• The Junction -ewaste here

Get Rid of the Lid

Please remove all lids from milk/cream bottles, fizzy drink bottles, household cleaning bottle triggers and pumps, as well as ice cream and yogurt container lids. Our aim as region is to eliminate these lids from our yellow recycling bins. Loose lids are a huge problem as they clog up Material Recovery Facility (MRF) machinery and the bottles with tops left on are treated as contaminated and disposed of to landfill. Unfortunately our staff don’t have the time to remove every lid so we need your help!

• Lids – remove from container/bottle and put in red landfill bin.
• Container/bottle - rinse and put in your yellow recycle bin.

For further information for your district click on the relevant council's logo at the bottom of the page.

Find out how to download your council's app with a weekly bin schedules, reminders, and recycling guides by clicking HERE.