Kia ora,
My name is Jack Karetai-Barrett; I’m a year nine student at
Whakatane High School, and this is my monthly zero waste column. Today, I’m
writing about what you can recycle at the kerb and how to avoid your recycling
ending up in landfill. Every year around 12.6 million tonnes of waste ends up
in landfill. Unfortunately, some of this could have been diverted to recycling,
for a new life as a new product. Let's talk about what you can recycle in your
kerbside collection, and how to make sure it is fit for the recycling process.
The first thing you need to know is that not everything that
looks recyclable actually is. Like, for example Tetra Paks, the packs that
contain your plant-based milks and other liquids. Tetra Pack is a composite
product, made from at least four different products that can’t be easily
separated. This makes them unfit for your recycle bin. It's hard to imagine why
products are still being made that can't be recycled.
The second thing you need to know is that your recycling
should be clean; food containers need to be rinsed before we put them in the
recycling bin, and lids removed. If your containers are dirty, they will find their way straight to
landfill. Please use your dishes water to rinse them - don't waste our fresh,
clean water.
The third thing you need to know is that in Whakatane, a
human is sorting all your recycling by hand.
Please make sure that you keep them safe by having clean, safe
recycling. Would you want to pick up shards of glass all day for other people?
The Whakatane District Council’s website tells us that the
main things you can kerbside recycle are:
Paper: Newspaper, office paper, envelopes, magazines,
wrapping paper, junk mail, and books
Cardboard: Cardboard boxes and egg trays.
Plastics: Look for the little triangle with the number on
your plastic, so that way you can ensure that it is alright for recycling.
Plastic grades 1 and 2, for example, milk bottles, soft drink bottles and
laundry and cleaning bottles that have 1, or 2 stamped on them. You can also add
your clean meat trays to your recycling, but remember to remove the soft
plastic cover.
Glass: Glass bottles and jars; clear, brown, green, or blue.
For a while blue glass could not be recycled in Whakatane, but now it can. If
you are taking your bottles to the free collection at the transfer station,
please put blue glass in the green glass bin.
Tins and cans: aluminium cans, steel cans and metal jar
lids.
While we do process some recycling in Aotearoa, New Zealand,
we also send a lot of our waste problems to other countries to solve. It's best
that we reuse our own food containers as much as possible.
https://www.whakatane.govt.nz/waste-search
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