Orange bags bulging with soft plastic are being placed outside homes in Nelson as a New Zealand first kerbside collection trial gets underway.

From last Thursday, 1000 enrolled houses on 140 streets are having their recycling collected kerbside, in a pilot being run and funded by The Packaging Forum.

Participating households were delivered orange bags two weeks ago, and will fill a bag every two weeks to be put out for collection in the six-month trial.

The scheme yielded 200kg in the first week from 284 bags.

The trial is being supported by Nelson City Council, but is not part of the regular recycling collection.

Enviro NZ will collect the orange bags, bale the soft plastic and deliver it to Future Post in Blenheim where it will be recycled into fence posts for local vineyards, farms, and garden beds.

Soft Plastic Scheme manager Lyn Mayes said the trial would explore whether kerbside collection was economically viable.

“We’re hoping to get some good data out of this trial; we know from our international colleagues and trials which have taken place in the UK and Australia that the easier you make it for consumers to recycle, the more material we collect and can place back in the recycling and circular economy.”

Packaging Forum chief executive Rob Langford said Nelson was chosen because it was the right size to be able to get a good sample size.

It was also a community where the in-store soft plastic recycling bins were already well-used, he said.

“We have a really good base to understand if any change is occurring because of the kerbside.”

As well as volume, they would be looking at the quality of the recycled plastic, with clean and dry materials needed.

“The hope is that we get significantly more soft plastics from this collection and it becomes clearly a viable and competitive way to collect the material … as well to be able to extend it outside of Nelson,” Langford said.

One of the trial participants, Nelson Mayor Nick Smith, is and was ready to put his orange bag out on Thursday.

He already collected soft plastic and took it to drop-off points, but was excited to be able to add it to the fortnightly recycling routine.

He was “delighted ” when The Packaging Forum approached the council to run the trial here, he said.

“Very proud it is to be the very first kerbside soft plastic recycling scheme.”

Having a business like Future Post to make use of the recycled materials was a huge benefit, Smith said.

“My hope is that we can further work with the industry on ensuring there is growth in using the posts so that we can continue to grow the programme.”

The Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme was suspended in 2018 when the Australian-based processors couldn’t take the volume of plastic from New Zealand, leading to back-logs of recycling. It returned to Te Tauihu in 2023.

Langford said they were now confident in the local manufacturer’s ability to take and use the volumes being collected.

“There is still sufficient capacity with Future Post to take this material.”

Soft plastics were also sent to Save Board in Hamilton to be turned into building materials.

How the scheme works

• Every fortnight participants put their recycling out. The next day, they put the soft plastic bag into the empty glass crate for collection, which will help stop it from blowing away.
• Bags should be packed tight with plastic before being put out for collection.
• Soft plastic includes any plastic soft enough to ball up – as a rule of thumb, if you can scrunch it with your hand it can go in the bag.
• All plastic needs to be clean and dry before recycling.
• Compostable plastic or heavily foiled plastic can’t be oput in the bags.
• Households that aren’t in the trial can continue dropping off plastic to collection bins atin tThe Warehouse, Woolworths and New World stores.

By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail

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