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Council Issues Recycling Challenge

Wednesday 18 January 2012, 6:16PM

By New Plymouth District Council

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NEW PLYMOUTH

The recycling habits of New Plymouth District residents slipped in 2011.

Data on the amount of recyclables collected from the kerbside and NPDC-operated transfer stations show that residents recycled nine per cent less material in 2011 than in the previous year.

In the same period, the total volume of rubbish sent to the Colson Road Landfill rose slightly, by nearly one per cent.

“It’s surprising that the recycling volume has dropped by so much, especially when people are generally happy to recycle and it’s so easy to do as part of the weekly urban refuse collection,” says Manager Water and Wastes Brent Manning.

“Recyclable material, except for green waste, can be left for free at any transfer station or collected from the roadside at the same time as the rubbish collection.”

In 2010 the total waste volume sent to the Colson Road Landfill was down nearly six per cent on 2009’s total. “That was a great effort by the community to reduce their amount of waste, and in 2011 our waste volume stayed pretty close to the 2010 total,” says Mr Manning.

“It would be great if residents decided that this year, they’ll focus on separating out as much recyclable material as possible from their household waste so that 2012’s statistics improve on last year’s.

“The more material we recycle and the less we send to the Colson Road Landfill, the longer our landfill will last.”

Based on its current use, the landfill is projected to close in 2018.

The Council will be consulting on potential improvements to the weekly refuse collection system as part of the Draft Long-Term Plan 2012-2022 this year.

Information on what materials can be recycled is available on this website, in the Rubbish section of Council A-Z.


Rubbish and recycling stats

Waste to the Colson Road Landfill (in tonnes):

2009: 63,201
2010: 59,442 (-5.9% from 2009)
2011: 59,939 (+0.8 % from 2010)

Recyclables (in tonnes) from the kerbside collection and NPDC transfer stations (excluding the independently operated Colson Road Transfer Station):
2009: 3,167.18
2010: 3,221.72 (+1.7% from 2009)
2011: 2,923.62 (-9.25% from 2010)


Related link
What can you recycle?