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Recycling

Sorted recycling ready for collection

Recycling helps you save money and protect the environment. It gives valuable resources another life while reducing the waste that goes into landfills.

Depending on what you have to recycle, there are various ways of disposing of goods and materials for recycling:

in public recycling bins in the inner city
in weekly recycling collections throughout the city
in the recycling centre or Second Treasure shop at the Southern Landfill
the annual e-Day computer collection
by finding ways of reusing materials yourself, or donating useful items to others.

Public Recycling Bins

LOVE NZ recycling bin

Public recycling bins are available in the central city.

These distinctive bright green LOVE NZ bins are for drink containers:

aluminium cans
glass bottles
plastic bottles.

The bins are being installed in Willis Street, Lambton Quay, on The Terrace and at the Railway Station as part of a government initiative to help reduce waste.

New Zealanders consume the contents of about two billion drink containers annually, and this is often in public places. Recycling helps reduce this mountain of waste, saves energy and provides material for products such as clothing, irrigation pipes and wheelie bins.

LOVE NZ recycling bin area map

Recycling Collections

Wellington City Council collects recycling materials in the inner city and suburbs.

For collection, materials must be sorted and placed in plastic bags or green recycling bins. Any material not in bags or bins will not be taken away.

Sort your recycling materials, tie them up in bags and leave them on the kerb with your rubbish bags on collection day. Put your bags in a recycling bin if you have one, but they will be collected with or without a bin.

In the CBD, recycling is only collected in plastic bags - green recycling bins are not used.

Reuse supermarket shopping bags for your recycling, or buy Council recycling bags. These are available for 15 cents each from Council Service Centres, and some supermarkets.

Green recycling bins are available for $10 from Council Service Centres.

Sorting Your Recycling

Recycling bin

Putting recycling in plastic bags helps the Council to sort your recyclables. It also stops your recycling from blowing away on windy days.

Use separate plastic bags for:

Paper and cardboard - newspapers, office paper, advertising circulars, magazines, envelopes, brown corrugated cardboard, egg cartons and pizza boxes (remove pizza scraps). All of these can be recycled, even if damp.
Glass bottles - all green, brown, blue, frosted and clear glass bottles and jars.
Grades 1 and 2 plastic - this includes water, fizzy drink, juice and plastic milk bottles.
Aluminium and tin / steel cans - including baked beans, fruit, beer, soft drink and pet food cans.

Bottles, jars, tins and cans need to be rinsed clean.

Information on plastic grades is available on the Plastics New Zealand website.

Plastics New Zealand website

Don't Recycle

Plastic coated cardboard containers (tetrapak) like soymilk and UHT containers as they also contain a foil lining
Polystyrene
Glass tableware, containers, mirrors, windows, pyrex, light bulbs, crystal, ceramics
Hazardous waste - broken glass, sharp objects, batteries, paint, oil
Plastic shopping bags and bread bags - but you can use these to bundle-up material for recycling
Plastic wrap
Grade 3 - 7 plastic, including ice cream, margarine and yoghurt containers
Aluminium foil, sheets and food trays
Disposable nappies.

Recycling Station

The Council operates a recycling station at the Southern Landfill in Landfill Road (off Happy Valley Road, between Brooklyn and Owhiro Bay). You can drop off large quantities of recyclables there for free.

The station has separate bins for different materials.

Computer Recycling Day (eDay)

eDay computer recycling

eDay is an annual computer recycling day aimed at reducing the amount of toxic computer equipment and electronic waste dumped in our landfills.

In September 2007, collections were held in Wellington and at 12 other locations around New Zealand. In one weekend 7000 households disposed of 300 tonnes of e-waste. The equipment collected is either reused or disassembled for recycling of materials.

e-Day 2007 website