Public place recycling trial

Council are running a park-based station for recycling your waste while you’re out and about. This trial started in January 2020 at Te Uruhi/Maclean Park in Paraparaumu, and is ongoing. 

The trial includes three recycling bins for different coloured glass bottles and jars, and a yellow bin for clean plastic bottles and containers, tins, cans, and paper and cardboard items. There's also a red bin for rubbish items that should not be placed in the recycling bins.

Any non-recyclable items in the recycling bins (such as dirty plastic or cardboard items, takeaway coffee cups, food scraps or soft plastics like bags or wrappers), contaminate the whole bin, and all of the contents have to be sent to landfill.

Users can help by emptying bottles of any liquids and putting food waste in the rubbish bin before using the recycling bins.

The trial will assess:

• the cost of servicing and maintaining the bins
• whether the station is used correctly. 

Audit

We audited the bins throughout 2021, and found the yellow bin wasn’t being used correctly. Non-recyclable items including coffee cups, aerosol cans, plastic cutlery, and dirty recyclables had been put in this bin, meaning that often entire bin loads had to be sent to landfill. If you have any questions about what can and can’t be recycled in Kāpiti, check out our What can be recycled page. 

Large amounts of household recycling had also been put in these bins. We encourage all local residents and businesses to recycle; however the Maclean Park recycling bins are only designed for small amounts of on-the-go recycling. The bins fill up quickly when household recycling is added, leading to overflow issues in the park and increased collection costs for ratepayers. 

If you have bulk recycling, or don't have a collection service, please use the free recycling drop off at the Otaihanga Resource Recovery Facility.

We're continuing to look at ways to improve the contamination and overflow issues in this ongoing trial.