Kerbside Recycling Collection

Using your crates

A Solid Waste Survey in 2019 showed that more than 60 per cent of what is going into our rubbish bins and then into the landfill could have been composted or recycled, which is why we want you to Make Landfill Your Last Choice.

Last year we collected almost 3484 tonnes of recyclable material from the kerbside (glass: 1976; paper/cardboard: 930; plastic/cans: 578) – with almost all of it recycled here in New Zealand.

You can recycle:

• Glass 
• Paper and cardboard
• Plastics (1, 2 & 5) and cans

Recycling in 4 easy steps

1. Wash, remove lids and flatten cardboard

Wash out jars, bottles and cans; remember no food or liquids.

2. Any Council crate; Just separate

Each household within the Hastings kerbside recycling zone has three crates for recycling. Recycling will only be collected in Council-issued crates. You can put out multiple crates with the same items (for example two crates of paper), but don’t mix the different categories in the same crate.

Separate items into the following categories:

3. Stop before the top

Don’t overfill your recycling crates.

Recycling outside of the crates will not be collected, for example large cardboard boxes.

If you have excess recycling, you can save it and put it out another week or take it to one of our free recycling drop off centres

If it’s windy, pop your heavier crate (bottles) on top of your crate of plastics or paper and cardboard, so it does not blow onto the street.

4. Kerbside by 7am

Place your recycling out at the kerbside by 7AM ON YOUR COLLECTION DAY. Place crates as close to the kerb edge as possible; not in the middle of the footpath.

DOWNLOAD YOUR KErbside recycling GUIDE here

What you can (and can’t!) put in your crates

Paper and cardboard

Clean and flattened

Clean and flattened paper and cardboard. Large cartons can be dropped at our recycling depots or you can cut them down to fit in your crate.

TOP TIP: If you have large cartons to recycle, you can drop them off for free at your local recycling depot, or cut them down to fit in your crate.

Plastic and cans

Wash, squash, lids off.

Number 1, 2 & 5 household plastics.

TOP TIP: Sustainable HB can also take metal jar lids, aluminium screw caps, metal bottle tops, coffee capsules, Colgate oral care products, aluminium foil and trays, batteries and Glad brand food wrap, ziplock bags and food storage containers.

Glass

Empty, clean glass of all colours.

The recycling teams will not empty bins that weigh more than 10kgs.

Why crates?

Using crates to separate items ensures we have the cleanest recycling possible and the high quality of the material collected will guarantee it will be recycled.
Separating recycling also allows paper and cardboard to be collected separately and dropped directly where it needs to go, saving double handling and transport emissions.

Why not wheelie bins?

While wheelie bins are very simple to use, the quality of recycling that comes out of the mixed recycling wheelie bins is much lower. It’s also a lot more difficult to separate items and therefore costs more to process. In Hastings, it is especially important to keep our glass separate from paper and cardboard which is sent locally to Hawk Packaging where it gets made into fruit trays, so there can’t be any fragments of glass in it for health and safety reasons.

Why having the wrong thing in your crate is a problem

Sometimes eager recyclers may want to recycle things we don’t collect through our kerbside collection. But there are really good reasons not to do that.
Your recycling may get left behind if the wrong things are in your crate. We know this is frustrating when you were trying to do the right thing. The ultimate aim is to be able to make new products – and mixing them or including the wrong items means this does not happen.

It costs time and money

The average recycling service crew member will collect 500 to 750 crates each day, taking an average 12 seconds to collect and empty each crate. Having to stop and sticker incorrect crates doubles this time and creates additional operating costs – paid for out of rates.

It reduces the quality of recycling

If it’s not spotted by our crew in the short time they have to look at each crate, mixed or dirty recycling becomes a problem at the sorting facility. All recycling is sorted by hand to remove items that shouldn’t be there (such as the wrong types of plastic or items with food on them) but with hundreds of items passing sorters each minute they may miss some items.

The sorted products are bailed for transport to re-processors to be turned into something new. If the levels of wrong or dirty items are too high the entire bale may be rejected and sent to landfill instead, meaning everybody’s good efforts have gone to waste.

It may cause safety issues or damage the recycling machinery

Having the wrong items in a sorting line can also cause issues if it’s going through a system not designed to process it. It may jam or damage the machinery and create a hazard for workers.

Only accepted items go on to be recycled

The facilities that take our recycling only have the ability to recycle the items we accept at the kerbside – that’s why they have been selected for recycling. Rejected items from the sorting line will go to landfill.