Mayor's Message

​This month Nelson became the first city in New Zealand to have an industry-funded kerbside recycling service for soft plastics. It is a six-month trial of 1000 homes funded through The Packaging Forum and supported by Council. It builds on previous work to find a solution to the waste from these commonly used products.

Nelson has a proud history of environmental leadership. There were successful campaigns to protect the Abel Tasman in the 1930s, the Nelson Lakes in the 1950s and Kahurangi in the 1990s. We proudly started NZ’s first Environment Centre in 1976 and it continues its good work this year with a recycling programme for construction waste. Our region led the charge on stopping the clear felling of native forests. Our Brook Waimārama Sanctuary is the largest pest-free reserve in the South Island and is soon to become home to tuatara.

Our city has been progressively improving our recycling, starting with glass and now including cardboard, paper, aluminium and steel cans, and hard plastics. The challenge with all recycling schemes is keeping the cost affordable for ratepayers and finding practical ways to reuse the products.

I helped get soft plastic recycling started in NZ during my time as Environment Minister. I worked with The Packaging Forum in 2017 to enable people to drop their used soft plastics at stores such as supermarkets and The Warehouse. This supply has enabled businesses to start up remanufacturing these soft plastics into fence posts for vineyards, farms and home gardens.

Future Post in Blenheim now has sufficient capacity and demand to be able to take more recycled soft plastics. Nelson was selected for the kerbside collection trial due to our strong track record in recycling, the support of Council and our close proximity to the remanufacturing facility.

I was delighted so many households volunteered for this trial so quickly. Each home is provided with orange bags the occupants fill with soft plastics such as bread bags and frozen food bags and then put them out fortnightly in the NCC blue crate the day after their normal Council recycling. Households not in the trial can continue to use the bins at supermarkets and The Warehouse.

I congratulate The Packaging Forum on this initiative. We need producers to take greater responsibility for the products they make after their use. My hope is that we make a success of this trial and it is expanded across the city and potentially nationwide.