Nelson First In New Zealand To Trial Industry Funded Kerbside Soft Plastic Collections

Written and released by The Packaging Forum

New Zealand’s first trial into industry funded kerbside collections of soft plastic is underway, with selected Nelson households being the first in the country to be a part of this groundbreaking initiative.

Households that receive an invitation to participate are encouraged to register for the trial which is expected to take up to six months.

The trial is being run by industry member organisation, The Packaging Forum, which operates the voluntary Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme across the country and while it is being supported by the Nelson City Council, this is not part of the Council’s regular kerbside recycling collection.

Lyn Mayes, Scheme Manager, Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme says the purpose of this trial is to explore the viability of recycling soft plastic packaging at kerbside, and whether this collection model is economically viable and deliverable at scale.

 
“As part of the trial we will also gather data on household willingness and community demand for such a collection service; levels of contamination in the collections and, importantly, whether the model is sustainable and cost effective. 

 
“Ultimately, we want to make it easier for Kiwis to recycle soft plastics at home, and we hope this trial will provide us with valuable information required to inform the future scope of a collection model. We have studied trials in the United Kingdom and Australia and can benchmark the results of this trial in Nelson with overseas experience,” says Lyn.

 
Households participating in the trial will be provided with orange soft plastic recycling bags and asked to put their soft plastic bags and wrappers into the orange bag and put it out for collection every fortnight (on a different day from the kerbside recycling operation).  Enviro NZ will collect the Scheme’s orange bags on separate collection trucks from council’s kerbside collection materials, bale the soft plastic collected from registered households and deliver to Future Post in Blenheim to be recycled into fence posts for local vineyards and farms, as well as garden beds.

The trial is free for selected households to participate, and is 100 percent funded by The Packaging Forum; and will be limited to the first 1,000 eligible households to register.

Letters are being sent this week to households in more than 140 streets in Nelson City inviting them to register; and collections will start in early October.

“We chose Nelson as our trial city for many reasons – great proximity to Future Post in Blenheim, and the Nelson City Council is the largest council in the top of the South Island and is actively looking at ways in which it can support its residents to reduce waste and increase recycling rates – we’re grateful for their support of us and this trial,” says Lyn.

“Also, Nelson residents are very keen soft plastic recyclers. Since we launched the Scheme 12 months ago in the region, with our recycling bins placed in various Countdown, New World and The Warehouse stores, we’ve seen a big uptake with consumers bringing their soft plastic to be recycled. Given this, we are anticipating that there will be huge interest, and we strongly encourage those households invited to participate, to register for the trial,” says Lyn. 
Nelson Mayor Nick Smith says he is excited that Nelson is leading New Zealand with this trial of a kerbside recycling service for soft plastics.

“Kerbside recycling has the advantage of being much more convenient than having to take soft plastics to a specific store. I strongly encourage Nelsonians in the 140 selected streets to support this initiative. I thank and congratulate The Packaging Forum on this initiative and commit Council to working as closely as possible with the Forum to make it successful.”

 
Rob Langford, CEO Packaging Forum says this is another example of industry taking responsibility and working collaboratively with councils to increase recycling rates.

“This is an important step to assess the costs and benefits of introducing new systems for collecting soft plastic packaging as New Zealand moves towards a mandatory plastic packaging product stewardship scheme. Under a priority product stewardship system, producers will be mandated to pay for the amount of plastic packaging which they place on the market with funding allocated to the collection, sortation and reprocessing of these materials.  This will see investment in recycling infrastructure and importantly an increase in the plastic recycling rate which is urgently needed as New Zealand currently has one of the lowest plastic recycling rates in the OECD at just 17.1%.”
Households not part of the trial are encouraged to keep utilising the soft plastic recycling bins placed in various stores.

All soft plastic placed in the kerbside trial bags, likewise in-store soft plastic recycling bins, must be clean and dry to avoid contamination.

Visit www.recycling.kiwi.nz/nelson-trial for more information on the kerbside collection trial, and what can and can’t be placed in the trial bags.