New Zealand's poor track record for recycling is about to get even worse. A Fair Go investigation can reveal that the vast majority of mixed recycling collected from public bins ends up in landfill.
Zero Waste advocate Hannah Blumhardt says the venture is a waste of time "it's costing councils enormous amounts of money relative to the level of problem-solving".
The public place mixed recycling bins - ones that accept a mix of paper, plastic, tins, and sometimes bottles - are currently provided by about 40 city and district councils. These bins are the ones found on streets and in parks. Many councils also provide home or kerbside recycling which is far more effective and not under scrutiny here.
Fair Go only assessed public place recycling as its usefulness is the matter of ongoing debate. More councils used to have public place mixed recycling bins, but some have now changed their approach.
The figure used to be higher, but some councils changed their approach based on the fact very little worthwhile recycling came from the bins. For example, Queenstown Lakes switched to recycling bins dedicated to single items e.g. just paper or just bottles.
Other cities like Nelson are in the process of replacing them with extra large rubbish bins.
Fair Go wanted to see how effective the recycling is in those 40 or so areas where public mixed bins were still in use.
We worked with Consumer NZ to place trackers inside tin cans and placed those cans in bins in Auckland, Dunedin and Taupō.
The results weren't conclusive, as in Auckland, the battery was recovered, and in Dunedin it was unclear where the can ended up.
However, in Taupō, it was tracked to the middle of the local landfill site.
It was enough to prompt Fair Go to ask every council to come clean about the fate of their mixed public recycling. We were shocked by the results.
As seen in the graph, some councils admitted to 100% of its mixed public mixed recycling ending up in landfill. Many other councils said at least 80% gets dumped.
Only a few councils reported worthwhile recycling practices, ironically, two of these were Dunedin and Taupō. Dunedin claims only 15% ends up in landfill, Taupō even less.
David Birk from Taupō District Council says the tin can Fair Go tracked to the dump might have been randomly missed.
They say their recycling rate is consistently high, which it puts down to having recycling bins with small holes next to very large rubbish bins, and also, to a high level of public education.
But Auckland Council's general manager of waste solutions, Parul Sood, admitted that the bins don't do the job, as 85% is contaminated; therefore, 100% goes to landfill, "so a massive quantity".
Fair Go asked why the Auckland bins are still in use and was told, "pretty much at the moment for the education aspect, to prompt people that they do have recyclables that they might be using".
Nelson City Council's environmental programmes advisor Karen Lee said councils weren't to blame because "people just haven't been using them properly".
Our graph also shows the level of bin contamination. This is the amount of non-recyclable material that is in the bin, or the amount of material that is contaminated due to food or liquid being placed in the bins.
The contamination means the process of sorting the recycling is very expensive and yields very little.
We asked for figures to compare home or kerbside recycling costs with public mixed recycling. Home costs ranged from $200 to $600 per tonne of recycling.
In contrast, the cost for mixed public recycling started at $1700 up to $5700 per tonne.
Better education is clearly needed, so the bins are used correctly.
There also needs to be more help from manufacturers, making it simpler for consumers to tell what can and can't be recycled.
Almost all councils also told Fair Go that they support a Container Return Scheme.
This is where a deposit is paid on an item like a bottle (e.g. 20 cents), and the deposit is returned when the clean item is recovered.
The Government has had this idea on the table for years but has yet to confirm it's going ahead. Advocate Hannah Blumhardt says it's a no-brainer.
She would like to see swift movement from the Government on this, plus a push towards re-use and reducing our reliance on non-recyclable packaging.
"We're so behind the rest of the world (with our waste management) it's going to get increasingly embarrassing."
Overseas return schemes have led to recycling recovery rates as high as 90-95%.
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