Recycling should be our last resort. Photo / Hamilton City Council
Recycling should be our last resort. Photo / Hamilton City Council
OPINION
In a world obsessed with recycling, Kate Hall takes a closer look at the limitations of this approach and what we need to be doing instead.
Recycling is made out to be the big sustainable thing we can do to “save the planet” but really, it shouldbe a last resort. We pat ourselves on the backs for full recycling bins without knowing that globally, only 9 per cent of plastics are actually recycled.
We are in a global recycling crisis and no one is talking about it. To convince you that we cannot recycle our way out of our climate crisis and to stop focusing so much of your energy and time on recycling, I’ll explain what recycling is, what happens to our recycling in Aotearoa New Zealand, and what you should be focusing on instead of recycling.
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new things. As a concept, recycling is an exciting idea that means products that are no longer needed in their current form can be turned into new things without being thrown away. Even though recyclable products are often downgraded (turned into a product of less value) and many materials cannot be recycled infinitely, the recycled material can stay in the resource pool for a little while longer; and that’s far better than sitting in a landfill.
How do we do it?
In Aotearoa New Zealand, our recycling facilities process around 270 tonnes of waste every month. Every material has a different journey.
For example, once separated from the other materials, paper and cardboard end up with Oji Fibre Solutions mills in Penrose, Auckland, Kinleith and Tokoroa. At these mills, the products are put through a hydro pulper (picture a washing machine). The wood fibre is cleaned and pumped into a paper machine to create more paper.
White and coloured HDPE (number 2 plastics, like your bathroom and laundry bottles) go to Astron Recycling - Pact Group in Auckland or Aotearoa NZ Made in Palmerston North. Sometimes they are sent to offshore recyclers to be reprocessed into plastic feedstock.
We recycle several materials domestically but we’re still sending thousands of tonnes offshore due to our limited recycling infrastructure and higher market demands in other countries that make offshore recycling more economically viable.
Between January 2018 and March 2021, we sent 98,000 tonnes overseas to places like Malaysia and Thailand. Once they are shipped overseas we have less control over what happens to the recyclable materials and there are concerns around the management of them, including whether it actually gets recycled and, if left unrecycled, how they impact the health of the surrounding communities and ecosystems.
Due to the standardisation of curbside recycling collections, many are frustrated by the number of products they can no longer put in their recycling bin.
What’s changed?
With the recent standardisation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s curbside recycling collections, many are frustrated by the number of products they can no longer put in their recycling bin. All lids (including ice cream container lids), plastics 3, 4, 7, plus liquid paperboard (eg Tetra Pak) and tinfoil have been banned from our bins.
But instead of recycling less, this standardisation will likely mean we recycle more.
Firstly, you may have been putting your 3, 4, and 7 plastics into your recycling bin for years, but after a fun adventure in your recycling bin, they ended up in landfill. Keeping them out of your recycling bin may mean your rubbish bin is more full, but it will end up in the same place it always has! When it comes to lids, tinfoil and other small pieces of plastic, when these are put through the recycling sorting machines they damage the machine and contaminate waste streams. For example, icecream lids are often registered as paper by recycling sorting cameras, so when put in your recycling, they’re at risk of contaminating the paper bundles.
Now you know a bit more about the recycling landscape here, here are three things you can do.
Recycle properly: Follow the recycling guidelines set out by the Ministry for the Environment. Make sure others in your household are also familiar with them. Putting instructions above your kitchen recycling bin can be a helpful reminder, or regularly mention them at flat meetings (if that’s your thing).
Avoid packaging (recyclable or not): When I shop, I avoid recyclable packaging nearly as much as non-recyclable packaging. A recyclable material is great when the packaging cannot be avoided, but it still emits more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. For example, producing new plastic emits 2.1 CO2e/kg. When plastic is recycled, 1.3 CO2e/kg is emitted. That number may be 37 per cent lower than the emissions involved in creating new plastic products, but it’s not zero. If I focus on reducing all packaging when I buy something new, I can reduce my carbon footprint and avoid the risk of the material never being recycled.
Support companies who reuse: Some companies are brilliant at designing waste out of production and replacing waste with reuse systems. My toothpaste, made in Wellington by Solid Oral Care, comes in a glass jar. Once I have around 10-20 empty glass jars, I return them to be sterilised and reused. We can all encourage and support companies who reuse their packaging instead of recycling it by buying their products, emailing them, reviewing them on Google, engaging with their social media posts or telling others about them.
I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone proudly boast to me “Kate, you’d be so proud of me, my recycling bin is so full!” While I am proud of those who follow the new nationwide recycling guidelines and have clean and dry recycling bins, I am most proud of those who avoid packaging altogether. We must stop falsely leaning on recycling as an easy, fun, simple solution to our climate crisis and start leaning more on reusing, redesigning and restructuring packaging systems. We cannot recycle our way out of our climate crisis.
