Bin The Campaign Material

The New Zealand PAPER FORUM

4th November 2008

Whoever gets your vote, make sure you put their campaign materials in your recycling bin when you are done…

As New Zealand gears up to Saturday’s election, 1.5 million households are receiving campaign leaflets from hundreds of MPs and prospective MPs across the country. The Paper Forum is today asking people to put these campaign leaflets into the recycling crate rather than out with the rubbish.

“If every household gets just one campaign leaflet that’s over a million sheets of paper which may end up in the landfill if people don’t make the right choice and recycle. If you consider there are several candidates in each electorate many of whom are sending out leaflets of their own as well as their Party materials that’s enough paper to cover several football fields and it can all be recycled. There is political consensus about the need to reduce our waste and this is an excellent opportunity for New Zealanders to exercise their democratic right and choose to recycle.”

“People remember to recycle their newspapers but often don’t think about leaflets, brochures, flyers and magazines which can also be recycled so we would like to see politicians encouraging people to do the right thing with their electioneering materials.”

Mr Chisholm said that the Electoral Office has confirmed that all paper sourced for voting papers is sourced sustainably according to the Government’s Govt3 procurement policy and will be shredded and recycled once the election is over.

According to independent research conducted by Infometrics, in the past year New Zealanders recycled 76% of all paper excluding paperboard which is covered separately in packaging recovery statistics. This compares with a global average rate of paper collection of 50% and a European average of 63%.

“We expect the new wheelie bin collection methods in Auckland and Christchurch to improve the paper recycling rate further. We can certainly do better but it’s worth remembering that 19% of paper is actually non-collectable and non-recyclable by virtue of its use. If you think about paper used to produce books or archive materials for example – these aren’t going to be recycled. That said we don’t expect people to be hanging on to the campaign materials one Election 08 is over!”

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