Celebrate the Holidays Without Becoming the Waste Reduction Grinch

Simple tips to enjoy the season while keeping waste to a minimum.

Christmas cheer shouldn’t come with a side of landfill. From torn wrapping paper to empty bottles and leftover food, waste can pile up quickly during the holidays. The Packaging Forum offers tips on how we can keep the festive spirit high while keeping waste low.

During the summer holidays, New Zealanders generate around 30% more waste—approximately 25,000 extra tonnes, or 5kg per person, the equivalent of five Christmas puddings each. [1]

Spending also spikes. In the first 14 days of December last year alone, Kiwis spent $1.65 billion [2], largely on food, drinks, and Christmas gifts—much of which ends up as waste.

While the scale of the problem can feel overwhelming, there are simple, practical steps Kiwis can take to reduce Christmas waste and keep it out of landfill and the environment, says Craig Miller, CEO of The Packaging Forum.

Recycling glass, plastic, caps and lids, and paper is one of the easiest ways to make a difference—and no matter where you’re travelling in New Zealand, recycling options are available. However, popular holiday destinations often experience population surges, putting pressure on local waste and recycling services.

For this summer, New Zealand expects strong tourism recovery, with Auckland Airport anticipating more than 2.5 million travellers during its peak December-January period (Monday 8 December 2025 until Sunday 18 January 2026). That includes around 1 million domestic and 1.5 million international travellers [3].

To cope with increased demand, many councils—particularly in holiday hotspots—boost kerbside collections and provide public recycling bins, making it easier to recycle on the go. Checking your local council website for collection days can help avoid missed recycling.

Craig says that despite these increases in collections, there has unfortunately also been a significant rise in recyclable glass, cans, and plastics ending up in landfill—especially when people are away from home.

“Naturally, sales of drink products increase over the festive season. What many Kiwis don’t realise,” Craig explains, “is that glass is 100% recyclable, and most glass recovered in New Zealand is recycled into new glass products—right here in New Zealand.”

New Zealand also has strong circular solutions for waste. By recovering materials like paper, plastic, metal, food and beverage cartons, and glass and turning them into new products, waste is diverted from landfill and given real value by being recycled into new products.

Most of us regularly recycle glass and plastic bottles, and of course paper, but it’s easy to recycle plastic bags, caps and lids too.

Craig says the Packaging Forum operates several voluntary recycling schemes in New Zealand – otherwise known as product stewardship schemes – devised to reduce waste and support New Zealand’s circular economy.

“Our voluntary recycling programmes are funded by our members, and have been developed to provide sustainable, end of life solutions for packaging such as soft plastic bags and wrappers, metal and plastic caps and lids, food and beverage cartons and glass bottles and containers,” says Craig.

Food and beverage cartons used for the likes of juices, UHT and plant-based milks can be collected and are recycled into sustainable buildings supplies at local manufacturer saveBOARD.

New Zealanders can also recycle their metal and plastic caps and lids – these items can no longer go in the kerbside recycling bin but they can be dropped off at selected sites across the country to be recycled in other products.

Soft plastics collected nationwide are recycled by local processors into products such as fence posts and building materials. In the past year alone, 900 tonnes of soft plastic were recycled into 92,000 fence posts by Future Post. Soft Plastic is also mixed with food and beverage cartons to be recycled into saveBOARD products. These innovative companies are making great products so if you’re doing some landscaping or home improvements, or need a great Christmas – check out Future Post and saveBOARD products, and buy recycled this holiday season.

There are soft plastic drop-off points across New Zealand, including major holiday destinations such as the Bay of Islands, Coromandel, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Queenstown Lakes, Marlborough, Nelson, Tasman, and Akaroa. This includes not only food packaging, but also soft plastic wrapping from gifts and cards, as well as plastic courier bags from online shopping.

Another effective way to cut waste—and often save money—is to reuse and choose refillable options wherever possible. Take a reusable water bottle to the beach or park; and your reusable coffee cup to the local coffee cart or café – bonus is less waste and a warmer coffee for longer.

The Packaging Forum regularly supports several community reuse initiatives, including funding mobile wash trucks since 2022 in regions such as Northland, Nelson, Marlborough, New Plymouth, and Wellington. These trucks help events reduce single-use plastics by enabling efficient reuse systems. Keep an eye out for wash trucks at summer festivals around the country—and enjoy the holidays while keeping waste to a minimum.

“The Forum has also supported a reuse trial with Recircle, using smart bin technology that allows consumers to return containers for refill; and if you’re at Waihi Beach this summer, check out the refillable water stations which the Forum also contributed funding to,” says Craig.

Food waste is a major contributor to our rubbish and the average New Zealand household throws away around $1,364 worth of food every year;[4] and, It is estimated around 50,000 tonnes of food waste is sent to the landfill in the week after Christmas.[5] Easy ways to reduce food waste over Christmas include making a shopping list so you only buy the fresh goods you need and freezing leftovers. Check out Love Food Hate Waste for more tips on reducing food waste.

ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Kristie Penwarden
The Packaging Forum
021 575 222

[1] https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2024/12/top-tips-for-a-sustainable-christmas?utm
[2] https://worldline.com/en-nz/home/top-navigation/media-relations/press-releases/pr-2024_12_16
[3] https://corporate.aucklandairport.co.nz/news/latest-media/2025/flying-into-busy-summer–over-2-5-million-expected-through-akl
[4] https://lovefoodhatewaste.co.nz/food-waste/what-we-waste/
[5] https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/12/24/kiwis-urged-to-limit-food-waste-this-christmas/

The Packaging Forum is pleased to welcome Victoria Carter ONZM CFInstD as its first Independent Chair.

Victoria is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand and brings over 30 years governance experience across local government, membership organisations, and business. She served as an Auckland City Councillor, including on the Works Committee where she supported resource recovery projects. She has extensive board experience and has grown several businesses including Cityhop cars by the hour. In 2016, she was awarded an ONZM for services to business, the arts, and community.

An enthusiastic practical recycler for most of her life, she was championing the circular economy before it was fashionable – always focused on how to keep materials in use and turn good intent into measurable, useful results.

Her immediate priorities are strengthening governance, getting to know our team and members, and ensuring our schemes deliver viable, sustainable packaging solutions for New Zealand. She is motivated by the opportunity to work with the Board to demonstrate the value we can bring to members and help New Zealand progress toward a circular economy. Victoria is joining the Forum at an important time and looks forward to working with members to advance our collective sustainability goals.

Our sincere thanks to Nick Baker for his valuable leadership as outgoing Chair and his ongoing contribution on the Board.

The Packaging Forum welcomed its new CEO Craig Miller, who started with the organisation in September.

Craig has relocated with his family back home to New Zealand from Singapore, where he worked in a Senior R&D Manager role for FrieslandCampina, across the Asia Region for the last 6 years.

Craig brings extensive global experience across FMCG, dairy, health and wellness, and packaging sectors; and has a strong background in developing and leading sustainability strategies and circular economy pilots via industry ecosystem collaborations – all of which will help expand the Forum’s voluntary product stewardship schemes, and other programmes. Previous other companies Craig has worked for include Fonterra, Mars, Manuka Health Ltd and Goodman Fielder- where he collaborated with The Packaging Forum in the early days of the Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme, so it is good to see the full circle with Craig coming on board to lead the Forum.

Craig is passionate and motivated by the chance to play a part in helping New Zealand on it’s path towards a circular economy, and to help improve sustainability for Kiwi Organizations in the face of one of the most important threats to all of our livelihoods – climate change. He believes by being part of this organisation and as members, we are already making a solid commitment toward addressing this challenge both now and for future generations.

Craig’s had a busy first few months since starting with the Forum and is excited to be coming into the Packaging Forum at a critical junction; with fresh eyes and an outside in perspective, to help rechart our strategy for the coming years and maximise value to members.

Food and Beverage Carton Recycling Scheme hits milestone of 100 collection points

The Packaging Forum’s Food and Beverage Carton Recycling Scheme is celebrating hitting a big milestone this month – the arrival of its 100th collection point at Organic Foods Nelson.
The Scheme has been working with local recycling advocate Jemima Jones, who operates Nelson’s Grassroots Recycling initiative, to make this happen.
Jemima was keen to work with the Scheme to increase the number of drop off locations across the region to provide Nelson residents with as many recycling options as possible – there are now eleven locations in Nelson thanks to Jemima and her volunteers.
In 12 months (April 2024 – March 2025) more than 1.3 million food and beverage cartons were collected through the Scheme and recycled into new products, including sustainable building products, retail infrastructure among other products, here in New Zealand.
As well as increasing the number of cartons being diverted from landfill and instead recycled, Scheme membership also grew to 12 organisations supporting the Scheme – this represents 66% of the food and beverage carton industry.
Any members keen on hearing more about the Scheme please contact Scheme Manager Greer Larsen-Compton at FBCmanager@packagingforum.org.nz

PPPS scheme report available now

We’re pleased to let members know that The Plastic Packaging Product Stewardship scheme report, which outlines a producer-led system to manage and reduce the environmental impact of plastic packaging, is now available at the project website. Read the Plastic Packaging Product Stewardship scheme report here https://ppps.org.nz/final-report/

The Board and team sincerely thank all members who’ve contributed to this scheme design and report–your input, ideas and feedback has helped make this a significant piece of work that can make a big difference to our waste minimisation, recycling and New Zealand’s environment and international reputation. The proposed scheme is a co-design between us, New Zealand Food and Grocery Council with funding from the Ministry for the Environment, and the scheme was widely consulted throughout our industry. We’d like to wholeheartedly thank our partners for their work.

Next steps

The report has been officially submitted to the Ministry for the Environment, with the project team wrapping up now the report has been completed and made public. The Board and team are excited the scheme has reached this milestone, and its potential benefit for our industry and New Zealand. The next step for The Packaging Forum is consulting with all members on our role in future EPR frameworks and product stewardship initiatives. The team will continue to provide input into the Government’s proposal to amend the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 (WMA) and the Litter Act 1979, and continue playing our part in the Recycling Leadership Forum.

Plastic and metal caps and lids can now be collected and recycled instead of ending up in landfill with the rollout of a new recycling programme.

Collections boxes for a variety of caps and lids are now available in selected New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square supermarkets in Auckland, Tauranga and Christchurch; and more regions and collection points will be available for Kiwis to drop off their caps and lids in the coming weeks.

New World Birkenhead in Auckland will officially be the first collection point for this scheme.

The Caps and Lids Recycling Scheme is an industry-funded programme operated by the Packaging Forum designed to ensure as many metal and plastic caps and lids as possible are diverted from landfill, and instead placed back in the recycling and circular economy.

Rob Langford, CEO Packaging Forum says as of 1 February 2024, all caps and lids irrespective of size, shape or material have been excluded from kerbside collections. This followed an announcement by the Ministry for the Environment in September 2023 that stated collections would be standardised across the country resulting in some materials being excluded, namely caps and lids, among other materials; and, unfortunately, this has resulted in a lot of good, recyclable material being sent to landfill instead of being recovered, and then recycled.

Rob says it is estimated that approximately 16,000 tonnes of caps and lids are in circulation annually – that’s approximately 900 trucks loaded with waste.  Around 60% of household grocery items have a cap or lid to contain the product safely and securely.

“Almost 10 percent of all packaging material is made up of caps and lids. Given this sheer volume of plastic and metal caps and lids in the market, we needed to quickly come up with a sustainable solution to this problem that has arisen due to changes to waste collections,” says Rob.

“As a result, The Packaging Forum along with industry partners and some of our members, has designed a programme whereby the plastic and metal caps and lids which would have otherwise ended up in landfills across New Zealand, will instead be collected and recycled into new products and placed back into the recycling and circular economy.

“The Scheme is 100% funded by members and provides a sustainable, end of life solution for these caps and lids.”

Rob says the metal caps will be sent to metal recyclers in New Zealand for processing and recycling – the likes of Hayes Metals, Simms Metals and the Association of Metal Recyclers. The plastic lids will go to PACT Recycling in Auckland to be collected, locally granulated, washed, and dried then sent to Australia to be sorted and recycled to make a range of new products including wheelie bins, flowers pots, slipsheet and cable covers.

“Ideally, we would recycle these plastic lids in New Zealand, but we currently don’t have the infrastructure to separate out the plastic types and fully recycle the plastic caps locally, so our best option is to send it to our partner across the Tasman – we do, however, have full traceability of the material via our Australian recycling partner.

“Ultimately, we hope that all the material we collect, both metal and plastic, can be fully recycled locally for the manufacture of new products – for that we need the programme to grow. We’re industry funded so the more members we have, the more we can grow our programme through the country,” says Rob.

“We are very pleased to have our collection boxes in several New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square supermarkets in Auckland, Christchurch and Tauranga. We already have a lot of interest from community resource recovery centres and other environment hubs which is brilliant, and these will come online in the coming weeks. We are taking a managed rollout approach to ensure we have a robust logistics network in place; but we are keen to hear from any organisation that is keen to become a partner of the Scheme or to have collection boxes on site,” says Rob.

Debra Goulding, Sustainable Packaging Manager for Foodstuffs, the co-operative behind the nation’s New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square stores said: “We’re proud to be a foundation partner for this meaningful new recycling initiative. As a 100% New Zealand-owned and operated co-operative of local grocers, caring for our environment is a responsibility close to our hearts. There are two initiatives we’re focused on, the first is making it as easy as possible for our customers to recycle packaging. The second is ensuring our packaging is recycle ready, reusable, or home compostable, so these valuable packaging materials remain in circulation.

Zero Waste Network and Environment Hubs Aotearoa are participating in this programme to minimise waste to landfill.  The two national networks are keen to be involved in the evolution of the programme to the materials being processed onshore and be part of the local circular economy. Locations from these networks and others will be ready to collect caps in the coming weeks.

“We were surprised that all untethered lids of any size and shape including margarine tub lids and food can lids etc were excluded from kerbside collections rather than just the tops which are too small to be captured through the recycling system. It is disappointing for our members, and for people at home wanting to recycle as much as possible, that they are no longer collected at kerbside, as they are in many other countries, and we do hope to see them eventually returned to kerbside collections soon so that valuable plastic and metal is collected for recycling in the way which consumers want,” says Rob.

“However, in the meantime this Scheme is filling a great need and is another real-world example of how industry can voluntarily collaborate and succeed in its responsibility to deal with the end-of-life recovery for packaging and support a move towards an onshore circular economy,” says Rob.

Kiwis located in a region that currently does not have collection boxes are encouraged to collect their caps and lids in anticipation of a collection box arriving in their region.

Targeting caps and lids was the next logistical step for The Packaging Forum which has real experience in delivering successful solutions to post consumer packaging materials in New Zealand, having operated several product stewardship schemes over many years, such as the Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme, the Food and Beverage Carton Recycling Scheme, and the Glass Packaging Forum.

The Scheme can only accept plastic and metal caps and lids: beverage caps (beer and wine bottle caps), condiments (for example, jams and spreads), janitorial lids (cleaning products), cosmetic lids, margarine and ice cream tub lids, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical lids, hinged caps (often found on sauce bottles).

For more information on the Scheme and for drop off locations, visit https://capslids.recycling.kiwi.nz

Current locations include:

Auckland: New World Birkenhead, New World Albany, New World Hobsonville, New World Waiuku, New World Stonefield; PAK’nSAVE Mt Albert, PAK’nSAVE Royal Oak; Four Square Mangawhai Heads

Tauranga: PAK’nSAVE Tauriko, New World Mt Maunganui, New World Gate Pa, New World Brookfield

Christchurch: New World Prestons, New World Bishopdale, New World Wigram, New World Ilam

*Additional locations will be available on the website www.capslids.recycling.kiwi.nz