Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre manager Dale Cobb said he encouraged people to clean their recyclables and make sure they're bringing the right products to ensure it gets recycled. Photo / Bevan Conley

Whanganui's recycling centre wants to debunk the myth that all recycling ends up in landfill. Reporter Emma Bernard found out where our containers end up once they're left with the recyclers.

The Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre is where the public's recycling is collected, sorted, and onsold to companies that turn it into various products.

The centre's manager, Dale Cobb, said when products were rejected from the centre, it was the case of people trying to recycle the wrong things, or they were too dirty.

"There is a lot of confusion out there about what is and isn't recyclable," he said.

"The biggest issue for us is when people don't take the time to learn what can be recycled and what can't.

"Some people make the effort to come all the way here, and should make a little bit of extra effort to learn."

He said most of the public were good, responsible recyclers, but there was still a long way to go.

"On average, we would collect at least two full woolsacks of contaminated or non-recyclable product per day."

He said people would also often try to bring things like polystyrene or soft plastics among other unrecyclable materials.

"We do our best to monitor the product that is bought in by our community during operational hours, however, the majority of these products are received during the hours between 4.30pm and 8am, when the centre is not monitored overnight.

Cobb said another important thing to note was dirty items could not be recycled.

"So I encourage people to wash their recyclables to ensure it doesn't end up in the landfill."

He said with the number of viruses out there, unclean, unsafe products such as bloody meat trays became an issue for the centre.

"We want the health and hygiene of the products, but also our staff and everybody else."

Annually, the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre (WRRC) collects 200 tonnes of green waste, 1000 tonnes of glass, 1000 tonnes of paper, 10 tonnes of aluminium, 150 tonnes of plastic and 50 tonnes of steel.

Cobb said these numbers had not changed considerably over the past three years, but the money the centre made from onselling the materials had.

"Around three years ago ... we were getting some reasonable coin for our products, which made the centre more financially sustainable.

"Fortunately, products like glass and green waste are generating quite a bit of revenue that makes up for the heavy losses."

He said the revenue opportunities were limited now due to the increase in products.

"It's driven the price down and we're barely breaking even."

He said the centre didn't take plastics 3, 4, 6 or 7 any more because there wasn't a market for them.

"The rest of the country stopped collecting it because there wasn't a marketplace for them, but we still collected it for over a year and ended up stockpiling it," Cobb said.

"We basically ran out of room, but luckily we found a buyer for it."

He said after they sold it, the best option was to stop accepting it.

Whanganui Mayor Hamish McDouall said the Government needed to make a stand on no longer accepting non-recyclable plastic into the country.

"The Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 proved NZ can have ultimate sovereignty over our borders," McDouall said.

"So why aren't we making it illegal to bring in unrecyclable plastics when it becomes a cost to councils and households to get rid of?

"We've already moved past using single-use plastic bags, now we should move past the next thing, which is unrecyclable plastic."

He said some New Zealand companies were also still deciding to put their products in unrecyclable packaging.

"There is responsibility right now for private companies to be thinking about their packaging."

McDouall said for the consumer, the first decision was when buying something.

"You can recycle, you can reuse, but the first on the pyramid is to refuse and not actually purchase it in the first place.

"All of us can do a couple of things to alter the waste profile of our community."

He said the Whanganui District Council had an ambitious target in 2017 to reduce waste to landfill by 50 per cent, but then it went up almost immediately after that.

The data provided to the council from landfill owners showed 707 tonnes of waste went to landfills in the Whanganui region in 2019.

In 2020, the number increased 20 per cent to 849 tonnes.

Whanganui District Council climate change adviser Caroline Arrowsmith said there were many things individuals and families could do to reduce waste in their households.

"Recycling is an important part of the solution, but refusing, reducing, and replacing single-use plastic is a much more effective way to keep plastic waste out of our oceans and environment in the first place."

She said a good place to start was to take note of what was in the trash and think about what it could be replaced with in the future.

"Lots of the alternatives will save you money as well as waste," she said.

Kerbside recycling in Whanganui has been confirmed for introduction next year, but it hasn't been determined yet where the recycling will go to be processed.

Cobb said it will change the way they did business, but the council still had to decide in what capacity.

Mayor McDouall said the WRRC would certainly be carried on in some way.

"We're fortunate that we've got some really healthy drinkers in Whanganui because glass is one of our main products keeping the centre going," Cobb said.

"But there's often a misconception about what glass can be recycled."

At WRRC, the only accepted glass is jars and bottles.

Cobb said this was because when bottles and jars broke down they granulated and basically turned into sand.

"Whereas other types of glass such as wine glasses, microwave trays, all that sort of thing shards when it breaks down."

He said all Whanganui glass went to Visy Glass in Auckland, with the biggest expense being freight charges, which took up over 50 per cent of the revenue.

"When the glass gets mixed up, it can't be more than 1 per cent contamination, or they can easily reject the load which comes at a big cost."

"Cardboard is everywhere," Cobb said.

"We used to sell our cardboard to China, but they stopped accepting it in 2018 and it caused a huge ripple in the market."

He said the centre nearly stopped collecting cardboard and fibre because it used to bring in $40,000 a year, then all of a sudden it was making a loss of $220,000 a year.

"Fortunately, the council came to the party because they realised cardboard is a significant product, and for us to stop it would just create an absolute [disaster].

"In saying that, we're still making a loss, but we think it'll take around 5-7 years for the market to get back to its original state for cardboard."

Cobb said all of Whanganui's recycled cardboard ends up at Kinleith Mill in Tokoroa.

"It gets baled here on site by a company called Oji, then freighted to Wellington, then Wellington to the Kinleith paper mill where they mill it and process it to go back into the system or overseas."

Cobb said the beauty of Whanganui was our plastic recycling is turned into dark-coloured products.

"This is why people can leave the lids on their milk bottles, whereas other places might sell on to manufacturers only making light-coloured products."

The product is melted down and chipped, then repurposed into a number of products.

"Generally, there's a 7-9 week turnaround before it goes back onto the shelves."

Cobb said all of Whanganui's recycled plastic bottles ended up at Flight Plastics in Wellington, and all of the No. 5 plastics went to Aotearoa NZ Made Plastics in Palmerston North where it gets recycled into plastic rubbish bags.

The cans are baled on site and sold to a local scrap dealer and sent overseas to numerous treatment plants.

The aluminium is then sorted, cleaned and remelted.

Next the aluminium is made into blocks and rolled out into sheets to be turned back into cans.

Steel is sent to a local metal recycler where it gets baled and shipped to a larger metal collection depot.

It then gets exported where it is shredded then melted down in a big furnace.

It's then rolled out into large sheets ready to be used again.

Tips for reducing plastic at home from Plastic Free Whanganui

• Try growing some of your own herbs or vegetables. If you don't have space for a garden, herbs on the windowsill are a great place to start. • Start composting at home • Use a keep cup instead of takeaway cups because they are lined with plastic. • Before you buy new, check the abundance of Whanganui second-hand stores or Facebook Marketplace • Take items to the ReUse Academy at the WRRC. These include clean icecream containers with lids, clean, dry glass jars, paper products, old cards and calendars, and even bubble wrap. Find an extensive list of what they accept at https://sustainablewhanganui.org.nz/reuse-academy/ • Buy in bulk or refill centres such as Bin Inn, Wild Oats, or refill milk in Okoia - they sell fresh, raw, unpasteurised milk at $2.5 a litre, through a coin-only vending machine.