Coffee Cups And Paper Towels: Marlborough Airport’s Battle With Waste

Friday, 1 August 2025, 3:24 pm
Article: Kira Carrington - Local Democracy Reporter

It only takes one person to throw a half-full coffee cup into the recycling bin to contaminate the lot. And that person seems to show up about twice a week.

Even so, the new waste sorting system at Marlborough Airport was making a big dent in the team’s goal of reducing 30% of its landfill waste in three years.

Marlborough Airport sustainability lead Stephanie Flores said she loved watching people use the new brightly coloured bins — for landfill, plastics, cans and glass — and make the right decision.

“People actually do care, they actually want to do the right thing.

“It’s a collective effort for sure.”

Flores said waste was a “social construct” and everyone had a different idea about where the problem was, and whether or not there was a problem.

“What I know is that we're sending 30 tonnes [to landfill] a year.

“About two thirds of our general waste was either completely recoverable or potentially recoverable.

“[We’ve] got to do something differently.”

The airport had also removed paper towels from their bathrooms, after a waste audit revealed it was one of their biggest waste streams. They were replaced with energy-efficient hand dryers.

“One tonne [per year] was just the paper towels from the toilet,” Flores said.

“How much do we spend on this? $5000 a year, just on paper towels.

“It’s organic material, so it’s breaking down into methane and we’re passing the problem on to Marlborough District Council, our owners.”

Flores said the decision to remove them wasn’t welcomed by everyone.

“The poor [operation] staff, they were getting questions like ‘why did you remove the paper towels’,” she said.

Flores said she put signs in the bathrooms, explaining the decision and how much waste was saved, similar to Auckland Airport’s signs when its paper towels were removed.

Other waste saving schemes included a craft paper recycling bin for receipts and boarding passes, and turning coffee grinds into mulch to feed the 4000 native plants along the nearby State Highway 6.

“We are looking at building a composter [on-site] and trialling composting to remove that waste stream altogether,” Flores said.

And their efforts seemed to be bearing fruit.

Marlborough Airport’s waste had decreased from 30 tonnes in the year ending June 2024, to just under 23.5 tonnes for the year ending June 2025.

Flores said that while the airport was too small to be a trailblazer in waste reduction, they were quick to adopt any strategies that had been successful at other airports.

“We like to consider ourselves as fast followers ... because we are about 300,000 passengers a year.

“We don't have the budgets that the larger airports have.

“[But we’re] punching above our weight.”

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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