Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Napier reduces plastic refuse

By Simon Hendery
Hawkes Bay Today·
11 Aug, 2014 07:40 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Napier City Council will stop collecting plastic shopping bags for recycling under a proposal to be considered tomorrow. Photo / File

Napier City Council will stop collecting plastic shopping bags for recycling under a proposal to be considered tomorrow. Photo / File

Napier City Council is set to ban shopping bags from its kerb-side recycling scheme as it continues to struggle to find an economic way to reuse the city's waste plastic.

The council stopped accepting any plastic for recycling at Taradale's Redclyffe transfer station in May because the high level of waste being dumped in the collection bins meant it was uneconomic to sort and process the recyclable material.

Nowcontamination of the plastic shopping bags residents are putting out for recycling - including with paper supermarket till receipts - means the council's recycling contractor is having difficultyselling them on.

As a result, councillors will vote tomorrow on a proposal from staff, endorsed by Napier Mayor Bill Dalton, to exclude shopping bags from its fortnightly street recycling collection.

The change of policy would bring Napier into line with Hastings District Council which does not accept plastic bags as part of its kerb-side recycling service.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In a report for tomorrow's council meeting, environmental compliance officer Tracey Kirwan says while the council's kerb-side collection contractor, Green Sky Waste Solutions, has previously sold bales of recycled supermarket bags to a recycler in Vietnam, contamination issues were making sales increasingly difficult.

"[A] number of bales have now been rejected by Vietnam. If there is only [a] small amount of contamination present, for example receipts or food residue, bales are rejected and must be landfilled," the report said.

Plastic bags collected through the council's recycling scheme were now ending up in landfills "more often than not" and banning their collection might send an environmental message, the report said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"If all plastic bags were to be stopped at kerbside it would send a strong educational message regarding the difficulties faced with recycling plastic bags and the need to use less plastic bags and making it less confusing to those who mistakenly put out non-recyclable plastic bags on kerbside."

Meanwhile, Napier councillors are also being asked to keep the Redclyffe plastic ban in place while other options are thrashed out as part of a wider waste strategy.

Ms Kirwan's report says banning plastic recycling at Redclyffe had increased contamination of the paper, cardboard, tins and glass still collected at the site because residents had begun dumping plastic into bins for other material.

A new recycling facility at the transfer station would cost $300,000 to build, but council staff were recommending to put its commencement on hold while a joint council waste futures project steering committee, with representatives from Napier and Hastings, considered long-term solutions for rubbish disposal in the region.

In the meantime council staff recommended spending $8000 to employ an "educator" at the facility over summer to help enforce the recycling rules and minimise contamination.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today
|Updated

Four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay, two seriously injured

Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Hawke's Bay house stand-off ends, police searching streets

Hawkes Bay Today

Fashion series supports businesses with multiple winter events


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay, two seriously injured
Hawkes Bay Today
|Updated

Four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay, two seriously injured

Some roads remained blocked.

17 Jul 03:11 AM
'We have you surrounded': Hawke's Bay house stand-off ends, police searching streets
Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Hawke's Bay house stand-off ends, police searching streets

17 Jul 12:15 AM
Fashion series supports businesses with multiple winter events
Hawkes Bay Today

Fashion series supports businesses with multiple winter events

17 Jul 12:00 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP