Yellow-lid recycling bins say a comprehensive "No" to polystyrene, greenwaste, food scraps, dirty paint buckets, broken glass, toys, polythene sheets, cling film and plastics not grade 1 or 2, like plastic bags...

In September, Whakatāne District Council ran a campaign to clean up our kerbside yellow-lid bin recycling. Unfortunately this did not work and Council's rubbish and recycling contractor, Waste Management NZ Ltd, reports the level of contamination hasn’t really changed.

Council's Manager Solid Waste, Nigel Clarke, says we need to make more of an effort to clean up our recycling. As we move in to the festive season we will create more waste and we need to ensure we can recycle as much of it as possible.

"There's still too much general rubbish going into the recycling stream. This is very much about a minority spoiling it for the majority of people who are doing the right thing," he says.

Council is planning an on-street audit in the New Year that will identify offending bins and leave them unemptied on the street. The unemptied bins will have a green sticker attached to them identifying the non-recyclable products. The trucks will not return to stickered bins, but they will be emptied two weeks later if the non-recyclable goods have been removed.

"We need to take further steps to clean up our recycling act as our previous campaign obviously didn’t get through to everyone. We're asking for the community's help to ensure we can continue to recycle in a market that is forever demanding cleaner recycling," he says.

On 16 December Council's kerbside yellow-lid bin recycling included polystyrene, greenwaste, food scraps, dirty paint buckets, broken glass, toys, polythene sheets, cling film, plastic bags, lots of plastics that were not grade 1 or 2 any many other non-recyclable items.

Yellow-lid kerbside recycling bins should only contain clean paper, cardboard, tins, cans and plastics grades 1 and 2. For plastics, check the recycling symbol which is usually on the bottom of the product - and only put Plastics 1 and 2 in the yellow-lid bins.

"Or even better - look for ways of purchasing fewer products using 3 to 7 plastics. And remember, only greenwaste goes in your greenwaste bin." Mr Clarke says.

Find out more about our Rubbish and Recycling services »

Exmamples of contamination found in our kerbside recycling: