Think you're good at recycling? Prepare to get ranked by the council

Illustration of Tauranga City Council's educational tags for recycling bins. Photo / Supplied

Tauranga residents will start seeing red, orange or green tags on their recycling bins as the council determines how well households have recycled.

The council will resume checking recycling bins for incorrect or unwashed materials this week now that rubbish and recycling services are back to normal under Alert Level 2.

Recycling bins would be randomly checked and a different coloured tag would be assigned.

- A green tag will be given to those who have recycled well.
- An orange tag will be given to those who need to improve.
- A red tag will be given to those who have too many incorrect or unwashed items in their bin and their bin will not be collected.

The orange and red tags will include what residents need to do to improve the quality of their recycling.

Those who receive red tags will not have their recycling collected and will need to sort their recycling better before their next collection.

The council's sustainability and waste manager Sam Fellows said soft plastics in recycling bins, such as chip packets and plastic bags, was a common issue.

"If we spot a recycling bin with soft plastics in it, we place a tag on the bin and ask the household not to put them in next time."

The recycling bin should only be used for washed plastic bottles and containers labelled 1, 2 and 5 as well as paper, cardboard, tins and cans.

Recycling bins contaminated with unwashed or incorrect items could result in whole truckloads of recyclable materials being sent to landfill.

Fellows said people should consider what they can reduce, such as disposable coffee cups.

"We've probably all had a cheeky coffee in a disposal cup under Alert Level 3, but these cups can't be recycled - they have to go in the rubbish bin. See if your local cafe will take a reusable coffee cup instead now that restrictions have eased."

Rubbish and recycling services at Alert Level 2

- Transfer stations are now open for all services, delays are still expected due to continued safety precautions.
- All kerbside bins are collected as normal, glass is now sorted by our drivers into colours before being recycled.
- Assisted service and bin deliveries continue.
- Tauranga households with excess waste from Alert Level 4 restrictions can take two bags of excess waste transfer station for free until 5pm on September 14.