My Account
by Trish Allen, Mahurangi Wastebusters
www.mahurangiwastebusters.nz
The very best way to avoid dealing with soft plastics is to try to stop the flow of it into your household.
Turn off the tap! Shopping at the increasing number of refill stores, where you can take your own bags and jars, makes this easier. There are also subscription schemes for items such as toilet paper. For instance, you can have a carton of Greencane toilet paper delivered to your door every 18 weeks in a cardboard box with zero plastic involved. The amazing Rubbish Trip (https://therubbishtrip.co.nz/) has a long list of places where you can buy packaging-free. It’s a bit overwhelming to think of everything at once, better to just pick one item to source soft plastic free and when that is a habit, pick another.
The Packaging Forum is an organisation representing the NZ packaging industry and in 2015 they trialled a soft plastic recycling scheme, which enabled New Zealanders to recycle soft plastic wrappers and bags. It is funded by members (an example of product stewardship) with support from the venues that provide recycling facilities such supermarkets.
Up until 2015, soft plastics were shipped overseas to facilities such as Replas in Australia, who converted the plastic into long-lasting items such as indoor and outdoor furniture, decking and bollards.
It turned out that Kiwis were enthusiastic about keeping their soft plastics out of landfill and soon the amount of plastic being collected was far more than we had the ability send offshore.
Also, the advent of Covid in early 2020 reduced peoples’ ability to recycle and disrupted the whole process. However, people are amazing problem solvers and onshore solutions continue to grow. We currently have companies that can turn your soft plastics into fence posts, buckets and water slides, to name but a few. To help close the circle, it’s important that we all support these companies and buy their products. Checkout the websites of Future Post and Second Life Plastics for more information.
Mahurangi Wastebusters has introduced free drop-off of soft plastics at our recycling centres in Wellsford and Snells Beach, and at our weekly Rusty Station garage sale in Wellsford. Check out our website for opening hours.
Mostly the message is simple: If it’s soft plastic and you can scrunch it up in a ball, you can put it in the bins. But it’s very important that bags are clean, dry and empty, to avoid contaminating a whole batch. More and more brands are adding a soft plastics recycle at store label on their packaging to make it easier to recycle correctly.
