Recycling Week
About Recycling Week
Recycling Week is an annual initiative to raise awareness and educating New Zealand on best practices for waste minimisation and recycling. Encouraging conscious procurement, and disposal of items, creating a waste free future for New Zealand.
Launched in 2013, an ever-increasing number of organizations (schools, corporates and everyone in between) are having fun and learning by taking part in the week.
Daily focuses
Each day of Recycling Week features an easy-to-remember theme that will challenge and encourage you to re-think your waste minimization and recycling behaviours. Each of these themes has plenty of activations, interactions and games to select from, click on the logos below to find out more.
Only purchase what is made able to be recycled, reused or repurposed.
When we buy a product we also buy any waste associated with the product. We are all responsible for waste, it starts with us and ends with us. Any item that is recycled helps reduce the need for new products to be made from virgin material. Cardboard, paper, glass and aluminium are best. If plastic is the only option, choose types 1 (PET) and 2 (HDPE) as they are the most readily recyclable plastics to recycle in New Zealand.
Recycling Benefits
- Conserving natural resources like timber, water, and minerals.
- Preventing pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials and by reducing waste.
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change.
- Manufacturing plastics from recycled materials saves 70% of the energy required to make virgin plastic product from fossil fuels.
- Recycling one tonne of paper saves approximately 25,000 litres of water
- Five 2-litre recycled PET bottles produce enough fiberfill to make a ski jacket.
- Producing 20 new aluminium cans from recycled material uses the same amount of energy as making just one can from raw materials.
Check Resources for videos, posters and assets you can use and share for each focus
Say no to waste! The best waste strategy is to phase waste out.
Over 12 million tonnes of waste ends up in New Zealand landfills each year. Sadly, about three-quarters of this waste could have potentially been recovered, reused or recycled. Not only is this wasting precious resources, but it also causes environmental harm such as leachates and emissions to the atmosphere. Leachate is the liquid formed when waste breaks down in a landfill and water filters through the waste. This liquid is highly toxic and can pollute the land, groundwater and waterways.
When organic material such as food scraps and green waste goes into to landfill, it is generally compacted down and covered. This removes the oxygen and causes it to break down in an anaerobic process. Eventually, this releases methane and other harmful gases. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 9 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Materials can take a very long time to break down in a landfill, such as:
Plastic bottles - over 450 years
Glass - never
Aluminium cans – 80-200 years
Disposable nappies – 250-500 years
Going waste free might be easier than you think. See tips below on how you can start today:
- Replace your desk bin for a small desk cube.
- Use an office paper box at your desk for all your waste paper.
- Reduce the amount of waste bins available and place them in inconvenient locations.
- Contact a recycling specialist such as Reclaim.
Check Resources for videos, posters and assets you can use and share for each focus
Avoid single-use waste by opting for long lasting reusable alternatives.
Single-use products make up a significant amount of waste going to landfill, and a good proportion of waste found in our marine environment.
Each year Sustainable Coastlines remove hundreds of bags of rubbish from our marine environment. 77% of what they remove is single use plastics. Their top 5 offenders are; plastics of unknown origin, food wrappers, bottle caps and lids, plastic bags, polystyrene/foam.
To help tackle this problem you can support businesses that produce goods with minimal and/or recyclable packaging by choosing their products. Or try going for zero packaging and only use reusable container.
Whether this is your water bottle, drinking cups, takeaway containers, refillable cleaning or bathroom products, and food wraps, many single use items have good and affordable reusable alternatives.
Check Resources for videos, posters and assets you can use and share for each focus
Contamination is the enemy of recycling. Ensure all recyclables are adequately cleaned before disposal.
Contamination is any material which is in the wrong recycling stream. This could be food in the mixed recycling stream or glass in the paper recycling stream.
The main challenge with contamination is the consequential issues at recycling facilities, where having the wrong material in the recycling stream can mean entire loads of material cannot be processed properly.
This Rinse and Clean Thursday, declare war on contamination and ensure all containers and packaging to be recycled are adequately cleaned before disposal. Just a quick rinse under the tap to remove any residue is usually sufficient.
Whether you leave the lid on the container or not depends on where in NZ you live.
We recommend having a look at your local council’s website or getting in touch with them. The following major cities recommend:
Auckland – Leave lid on
Hamilton, Wellington & Christchurch – Take lid off
Check Resources for videos, posters and assets you can use and share for each focus
Reflect on what was learnt and make a commitment to minimise waste at work, school and at home.
When it comes to recycling and waste minimization there are many different things that can be done to reduce waste destined to landfill.
Reflection Friday is a great opportunity to brainstorm and commit to new recycling initiatives for your office, classroom or home. Take the time to set recycling targets, make pledges and kickstart initiatives that address New Zealand’s waste problems through long term sustainable solutions.
New Zealand urgently needs to shift from a take – make – waste linear model to a circular economy. A circular economy will help us protect our unique and beautiful environment while creating new business opportunities.
Check Resources for videos, posters and assets you can use and share for each focus
Take the time to identify all that can be reused, repaired, recovered or repurposed around the house.
Recycling is great, but turning your unwanted items into something new and useful is even better.
Get the whole family involved and rid your home of all unwanted items that others may be able to use or indeed be grateful for.
Take all unneeded items to your nearest Salvation Army, City Mission or Hospice shop. Ensure these items are still in good condition and you are not simply passion on the waste problem.
You can also make some money through listing it on Trade Me, social media platforms, Neighbourly apps, etc. Before resorting to landfill, seek out whether your unneeded items can be recycled through local clothing bins, resource recovery centres, or other specialty recyclers.
Check Resources for videos, posters and assets you can use and share for each focus
Our Partners
Hundreds of businesses, schools, local governments and community organisations participate in Recycling Week each year.
A number of those also help bring Recycling Week to life, helping drive education, reach more New Zealanders, creating resources, providing financial support and improving the overall proportion of waste ending up in landfill.
Partnerships allow us to provide resources to participants and assist in running activations to engage staff, students and everyone else. Interested in supporting us? Reach out by using the button below.
