this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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The disposal of waste, especially plastic, is a real issue. I heard recently that up here in Northland, land-fill is still the most used method.
Yeah I’m sure that’s the case too. Doesn’t most of our recycling consist of shipping it off overseas still?
~~No, I believe it's almost none now.~~ Edit: I may be wrong about this. We can recycle 1, 2, and 5 in NZ but I can't find good data on what proportion is actually done in NZ. Articles written a few years ago talk about lots still going overseas, but there has also been new regulation in the past few years to prevent "low quality" plastics being exported, so this may have changed. Here is a page that lists everything except metals being processed in NZ for Wellington City, but it may be different in other parts of the country.
1, 2, and 5 plastics can be recycled in NZ.
If your council accepts 3, 4, 6, or 7, they are going to landfill, no exceptions. I think most now will say they don't take them, but I've read a while back that some councils say they take them to make things easier for people, then they sort them out during processing and send them to landfill.
Huh interesting, I just checked our council and they take 1-7, but they just send 3, 4, 6 & 7 to landfill. Good info, thanks. Hopefully they sort something out for the rest soon.
Those plastics are harder to recycle. It would be better to stop using them. I purposely avoid buying things that aren't in 1,2, or 5.
Now if you're really keen, you can recycle almost anything. But it's super expensive. But just in case: https://zerowasteboxes.terracycle.co.nz/