Auckland Council confiscating recycling bins in bid to stop people putting rubbish in wrong place

By RNZ

Auckland Council has been confiscating recycling bins in an effort to stop people throwing rubbish in the wrong bin.

Some 104 bins were seized from households from Manurewa, Papakura and Wiri in the first phase of a trial to combat growing contamination of recycling, which ended in May 2024.

General manager of waste solutions Justine Haves said bins were confiscated from residents who repeatedly put rubbish in their recycling bin, even after warnings.

Recycling contamination from bagged waste, clothing and textiles was getting worse, Haves said, and intervention was needed.

“The contamination in recycling actually costs us. It obviously slows down the recycling of good material, and at the moment, contamination is costing us about $3.5 million a year to deal with.

“We really need to reduce that and make sure we’re getting good recycling through the system, to make sure that the system is working well for all Aucklanders.”

Auckland Council has been confiscating recycling bins in an effort to stop people throwing rubbish in the wrong bin. Photo / Duoya Lu / RNZ

The trial had varying approaches in four locations, and at least two warnings were served before a bin was taken away.

“If the contamination has occurred and customers have received a first and second warning, then in some areas of the trial we then remove the bin after the third time of contaminating. So we really try and do the informed phase first, and then the bin removal is the third step,” Haves said.

Of 1504 total properties in the trial, 1046 put bagged waste or other non-recyclables in their bins and had their bins red-tagged.

Some 392 households in three areas – Wiri, Papakura and Manurewa – got a second warning after rubbish was found in the bin again, and repeat offenders in Papakura and Wiri were treated to a door-knock from a council officer or community partner.

After that, it was goodbye to the wheelie bin and hello to a plastic bag for recycling.

Haves said the good news is that tagging bins and having conversations with repeat offenders were helping people recycle better.

“We’re getting more of an impact in areas where we are doing both tagging and conversations. So either with council officers or with our community partners, it really helps create an understanding of why recycling right helps.

“It’s really showing that creating understanding for people is just as important as the intervention. So now we are interested in exploring further how we can make that approach scalable across Auckland to help reduce our contamination overall.”

The second phase of the trial is currently being expanded further out to South and West Auckland, and will run until February 28, 2025. After that, council officers will be developing a plan for how to take the strategy to crack down on waste in the recycling bin to the rest of Auckland.

What can go in the recycling bin

“We can recycle plastic bottles, trays, and containers, any of those items that are numbered 1, 2 or 5, you can also recycle glass bottles and jars,” Haves said.

That includes clean food and drinks containers, steel, aluminium and tin cans, and paper and cardboard.

“One of the things that we don’t want in our recycling bins is plastic bags or soft plastics, they get caught in the sorting machines. You may be able to drop these at collection points at local retailers.”

- RNZ

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