6 October 2003
Media Release

Recycling Sculpture On The Move

Manukau Residents and visitors have one more week to see the Amphora sculpture on display in Manukau Square before it moves to its new location outside the Corbans Arts Centre Office in Waitakere.

The 2.9m sculpture weighs a massive 400kg and is made entirely of recycled steel sheets, mesh and cans.

Manukau City Council’s Senior Policy Analyst Patricia Facenfield says, “We hope that by bringing the vessel to Manukau we have spread the recycling message.

“Manukau has done extremely well adopting recycling practices at home. We have an average 80% participation rate but we can do better,” said Ms Facenfield.

Council is reminding households that all steel and tin cans can be recycled through the weekly collection. This includes fly spray containers and other aerosols, furniture polish cans, shaving cream, and all food cans.

However, unlike cans, only some plastics are recyclable. These are mainly bottles labelled with a 1 or 2. Although recovery methods have improved, the economic viability and methodologies have not yet been established within the industry to accept all household plastics.

“There are a lot of plastic products being placed in the green bins that are not recyclable. People should think twice about placing plastic in the bin and concentrate on plastic bottles that are easily identified by the # 1 or # 2 in the recycling triangle. Just because it’s plastic doesn’t mean it’s recyclable” says Ms Facenfield.

A positive example of plastics being recycled are soft drink bottles collected through the kerbside collection in Manukau City, they are processed and then new bottles manufactured containing 25% recycled material.

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