Over 14.5 million soft plastic bags recycled

Press Release

Over 14.5 million soft plastic bags have been recycled including, 1.2 million bread bags, 600,000 frozen food bags and 600,000 toilet roll bags

19th September 2016

Ten months after the first Love NZ soft plastic recycling bins were launched at New World, PAK’nSAVE, Countdown and The Warehouse stores in Auckland, the Packaging Forum reports that 58.5 tonnes of bags and wrappers have been dropped off at participating stores around the country for recycling.

Lyn Mayes, Project Manager says that the numbers demonstrate success:

“200 stores in Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury are now offering the service and over 14.5 million bags have been dropped off by customers. REDcycle which runs the operations has conducted an audit of what was collected in the first six months of 2016. The results are impressive:

53% volume is single use unbranded plastic bags such as fruit and vegetable bags, cereal bags or branded or unbranded shopping bags; and
42% is branded food and grocery packaging.

Chart 1: Summary of Audit

“There is only a small amount of rubbish material, which cannot be recycled, being placed in the soft plastic bins. At 5% this contamination rate is much lower than experienced in other public place recycling bins, showing that shoppers are making a real effort and the message if it is soft plastic and can be scrunched up in a ball it can be recycled is clearly working.
The programme’s success is dependent upon funding from brand owners and this audit has provided the first feedback for them on how their customers are doing. It also allows us to target brands who are not currently funding the programme, but whose customers are using the service.”

Around 6 million of the bags and wrappers dropped off are branded packaging (excluding retailer carrier bags) with category allocations shown in Chart 2 below:

Chart 2: Collected bags by category

Mayes adds: “We have really good support from across the sanitary hygiene brands, confectionery, biscuits and cereal brands and we are working with these brands to leverage their consumer communications. One of the most commonly dropped off materials are frozen food bags, so we are keen to have more frozen food brands to step forward and back the programme.”

Chart 3: Brands currently funding the Programme

REDcycle has shipped two containers of plastics to the programme's manufacturing partner Replas in Melbourne where the packaging is recycled into bollards, traffic speed bumps, decking and tracking, furniture and a whole range of weather resistant plastic products suitable for schools and parks as well as construction, conservation, commercial and community groups.
The recycling bins now being manufactured by Pioneer in Whangarei now contain a 10% blend of soft plastic materials collected from consumers and processed as part of trials with Astron in Auckland.

The programme has received $700,000 from the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund to match funding by industry. The service will roll out in Greater Wellington in October 2016, with further expansion to Otago, Bay of Plenty and Manawatu planned in 2017.

For Information
The Packaging Forum promotes the Love NZ brand under license from the Ministry for Environment. http://www.recycling.kiwi.nz/soft-plastics

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