Lyn Mayes, Manager of the Public Place Recycling Scheme said, “The Scheme funds programmes which increase recycling at venues and events and decrease waste sent to landfill. One of the biggest contributors to waste at events is food scraps, food containers, cups and plates and if all this can be composted it makes a huge difference to the waste diversion rate. Using compostable packaging sent to a compost facility turns waste into a valuable compost material.

“However before event organisers choose compostable packaging they want to know that there is a facility nearby that can take this waste because putting it in a landfill makes no sense.”

“The Gourmet Night Market in Tauranga is one event waste composting success story. They have been achieving over 95% waste diversion through having an effective local composting solution so we were pleased to fund a national research project by Beyond the Bin which has been behind this initiative and others around the country.”

Kim Renshaw, Director, Beyond the Bin said, “The composting industry is slowly developing across most regions in New Zealand to be able to process compostable packaging. Our research identifies twelve composting facilities around the country currently able to accept and process event waste and thirteen which are currently working towards it.

“Some of these facilities are running trials; finalising consents; or awaiting service providers to grow their services to support the process. Decontamination and education are the key solutions to processing event waste through NZ’s composting facilities.”

The majority of these facilities use the windrow composting process.The research identifies a further 30 facilities which may be able to process compostable event waste in the future with 43 facilities unable to process this type of waste.

Mayes says that the Packaging Forum will use the research results to help inform packaging manufacturers, event organisers and the hospitality sector about the availability of suitable compost facilities.

“The report notes that because compostable packaging is not currently recognized or certified by industry bodies in New Zealand as a suitable input for organic compost, some facilities which are capable of processing food packaging waste are unable to do so. As the development of composting facilities continues, it is important that we aim to make sure that the compostable food packaging used at events is compatible with the requirements of the end user.”

Nearly a year after The Packaging Forum launched as a new packaging association to build on the platform of its two accredited voluntary product stewardship schemes for glass and public place recycling, the organization shows record growth with 32 new members joining one of our schemes or associated projects.

Andrew Hewett said his appointment comes at a great time in the organisation’s growth: “Few membership organisations grow at a rate of more than 2 new members a month which shows that our voluntary product stewardship schemes provide industry with an effective way to invest in end of life recycling solutions.

“There is a view that if it is voluntary it can’t work but over the past decade the Glass Packaging Forum (now The Packaging Forum) has shown what can be achieved through industry led voluntary product stewardship programmes.”

“New Zealand’s Glass Recycling Rate is now 72.8% and matches the EU average for 28 countries. Four years ago ahead of the Rugby World Cup we took over the operational management of the Love NZ public place recycling programme and since then we have tripled public place recycling bins nationwide and have a target to triple them again by 2020.

“Since kick off at Eden Park in September 2011, around 12,000 tonnes of packaging has been diverted from landfill by PPR project partners. That’s enough bottles, cans and cartons to fill Twickenham Stadium to half way up the stands.”

“This year the Packaging Forum commissioned the first national Litter Survey which provides a benchmark for measuring litter and targets a 10% reduction by 2020 through partnerships between industry and local government.

“A Working Group comprising representatives from leading brands, councils and recyclers is using the survey data and analyzing collection costs to develop recommendations to reduce littering and increase what gets recycled in public places.”

“Next month we launch the first drop off recycling bins at participating New World, PakNSave, Countdown and The Warehouse stores in Auckland. This will allow shoppers for the first time to recycle the wide range of soft plastic packaging which every household uses such as bread bags, frozen food bags, confectionery wrap, pasta and rice bags, toilet paper packaging, sanitary hygiene packaging and courier envelopes. The aim is for over 70% New Zealanders to have access to drop off facilities within a 20km radius of their home or workplace.”

“Thanks to the funding provided by the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund for the soft plastics programme, we will be able to move faster and to more regions than we would otherwise be able to do and as importantly their financial support shows that this is a true partnership between Industry, Government and the Community working together to promote recycling and the Love NZ brand.”

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The project will initially trial at New World, PAK’nSAVE and The Warehouse stores in Auckland before rolling out to Countdown stores in Hamilton with further expansion to Wellington, Canterbury, Otago, Bay of Plenty, Manawatu and other regions over three years. The objective is to provide access to recycling for soft plastics for over 70% New Zealanders.

Lyn Mayes, Manager of the Public Place Recycling Scheme which will manage the project said: “Soft plastic bags are not currently collected for recycling by councils because they can contaminate the recycling process. New Zealanders use over 1.6 billion plastic bags in the home every year.

“The new project will take all soft plastic bags including bread bags, frozen food bags, toilet paper packaging, confectionery and biscuit wrap, chip bags, pasta and rice bags, courier envelopes, shopping bags, sanitary hygiene packaging- basically anything made of plastic which can be scrunched into a ball.

“Customers can bring their used soft plastics back to store and put them in the recycling bin. This will be collected from store by REDcycle who also run the programme in Australia.

“Initially the materials will be sent back to Australia where they are made into park benches and fitness circuits for playgrounds until there are facilities in NZ such as those planned at Astron Plastics that can process these products. One of the really great opportunities is to make recycling bins out of these soft plastics so we can buy them back for our Public Place Recycling Scheme. We expect the first new specially designed REDcycle bins to be in participating Auckland stores by the end of September.”

Andrew Hewett, Chair of The Public Place Recycling Scheme said: “This project shows what can be achieved by industry working in partnership with Central Government. The Public Place Recycling Scheme is focused on increasing recycling away from home and reducing litter and this project goes one step further by providing households with the opportunity to take their soft plastic bags back when they go shopping and providing a cost-effective recycling solution for the wide range of soft plastic packaging which every household uses.

“This is a voluntary, industry-led initiative and a true product stewardship model where everyone involved in the life cycle of a product – manufacturers, distributors and consumers – choose to share responsibility for the best end-of-life outcome.”

The project is already supported by major brands including Cottonsoft, Goodman Fielder, Huggies, Kleenex, New Zealand Post, Pams, SunRice, Tuffy, Astron and Elldex Plastics with many others committed to joining the programme.

Shoppers in Australia and in the UK have demonstrated that collecting soft plastic packaging and dropping it off at a collection point is simple and effective.

A survey of New Zealanders by Horizon Research in June found that 61% respondents would take their soft plastic bags back to a drop off recycling bin at supermarkets and other locations if this service were provided; and 78% would be likely to use this service if they knew that the soft plastic bags would be made into useful products such as park benches, recycling bins or fitness circuits.

The development of the methodology and the survey have been carried out by specialist waste consultancy Waste Not Consulting Ltd.

The survey was commissioned by the Packaging Forum’s Public Place Recycling Scheme in order to establish a national litter index.

Lyn Mayes, Manager of the Public Place Recycling Scheme, said: “One of our Key Performance Indicators is to target a reduction in the amount of packaging litter by 10% by 2020 but first we required an independent study into the current situation in New Zealand. This study, by Waste Not Consulting, provides us for the first time with national data about packaging litter but will also be a useful reference point for non-packaging organisations.”

The National Litter Survey litter field count involved the counting and classifying of loose litter, in situ, at 300 transects in eight urban areas – Auckland, Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Taupo, and Wellington. These eight urban areas include 52% of the population of New Zealand.

Read the survey in full.

The successful projects will result in 44 new recycling and waste bin combinations being installed at hospitals, secondary schools and shopping areas. The recycling bins will promote the Government’s Love NZ brand to help drive national consistency.

Lyn Mayes, Manager of the Public Place Recycling Scheme says that applications were assessed against a range of criteria: “Our aim is to work with industry, local government and community groups to increase the availability of recycling bins in communities that do not currently have recycling facilities, tourist locations, venues where a lot of people consume snack food and beverages; and around our beaches and waterways.

“We support programmes which focus on family and children, are open to large numbers of the public and promote recycling at sporting and cultural initiatives. The projects funded through the scheme will over time significantly increase recycling and we hope will have a corresponding impact on reducing litter.”

The projects include:
• New recycling facilities in the cafés and public place areas at Auckland DHB and Middlemore Hospital;
• Support for a National Schools Project run by EERST which will trial recycling at 5 selected secondary schools around the country;
• Introduction of recycling facilities at Southmall in Manurewa which receives 4 million visits per annum;
• A pilot public place recycling initiative in Levin working with Horowhenua District Council; and
• Funding for Tauranga City Council to support recycling at the AIMS middle school sports tournament in September which sees 14000 people attending from around 200 schools in 18 sporting disciplines.

Marty Hoffart Chair of EERST Trust says: “Thanks to financial assistance from the Public Place Recycling Scheme, our not for profit organisation, EERST has been able to provide several high schools around the country with permanent recycling bins for beverage containers. This is going to make a real difference for these schools, because the bins will become a permanent fixture within the school grounds. This project would never have gone ahead without the grant.”

Companies funding the scheme include brand owners such as Bell Tea, Coca Cola Amatil, DB, Frucor, Lion, Mars Confectionery and Pernod Ricard Winemakers; retailers Countdown and The Warehouse; Quick Service Sector brands Burgerking, KFC, Starbucks, Carls Junior, Pizza Hut and BP’s Wild Bean Cafe; and those involved in manufacturing, distributing or recycling packaging e.g. Biopak, Ecoware, ExpressPak, Huhtamaki, Orora Beverage Cans, Tetra Pak, Smart Environmental, TPI Waste Management and Packaging House.

The latest funding round is now underway closing 11th August and successful applicants will be notified in September. Organisations seeking funding for capital expenditure projects can do so at the GPF website.

David Carter, Chair of the Forum, outlined the Forum’s role as a product stewardship organisation: “It’s a decade since the packaging industry signed the Packaging Accord which set targets for recycling, encouraged better design and anticipated an increase in end of life recycling options for post-consumer packaging waste including a focus on public place recycling.

As the Packaging Accord ended mid 2009 the Waste Minimisation Act came into law enabling the development of voluntary product stewardship schemes. Our work as a glass packaging organisation funded by voluntary levies allowed us to move relatively seamlessly from the Accord to an accredited product stewardship scheme.”

“Glass recovery increased from 50% in 2004 to 69% in 2014. This recycling rate is on a par with the European average of 70%. Over the same period the Forum has raised around $6.5 million to help support research and development, capital projects and consumer awareness and education programmes which support the work of local authorities.

“This year we have set a challenging recycling target of 78% by the time the scheme is up for renewal in 2017. To achieve this we have focused on identifying the whereabouts of the glass not being recycled and how best to recover it.”

“In 2010 the Forum took over the operational activities of the Love NZ public place recycling programme which central government had initiated during the Packaging Accord. Since then industry has matched the Government’s seed funding dollar for dollar and has more than doubled the number of Love NZ recycling bins at less cost. In November 2013 the Forum successfully achieved accreditation of its voluntary Public Place Recycling Scheme which sets targets to triple the number of public place recycling bins over seven years and to reduce litter by 10% over the same period.”

“Ten years ago our industry took a leadership role when it established a levy to address our collective role as product stewards. Over the past five years we have conducted consumer market research and stakeholder research to better understand what people expect of industry. We have listened and responded and as a result the Forum now represents more than the glass industry. Members of the Public Place Recycling Scheme include quick service restaurants; plastic, cans and paper manufacturers, shopping malls and transport hubs.”

“Our focus is outward towards the community rather than being a traditional member services organisation. This means that in addition to looking after the needs of our members we also seek to look after society’s needs. The two are not mutually exclusive. As we embark on our second decade, it is clear to us that product stewardship whether voluntary or mandatory must be a feature of the way we do business. It is important for the Forum to clarify its role representing all types of packaging as well as outlets where packaged goods are sold.”

“The Government has recently released its discussion paper outlining priority waste streams for product stewardship intervention. The proposed priority products are all products where voluntary measures have suffered from non-participation or free riders. We have proven that it is possible to develop packaging product stewardship schemes which are funded by industry and which work but we now need to address the gaps in our packaging product stewardship portfolio to build credible industry schemes beyond glass and public place recycling and seek accreditation for these.”

“In addition to the targets we have set for glass recovery, public place recycling and litter reduction, the community expects us to dial up the overall packaging recovery rate from the 56% recovery rate when lasted reported in 2010. The European average recovery rate was 77% in 2011 with a recycling rate of 64%. We believe that with effective product stewardship schemes in place to help increase packaging recovery from kerbside and public places, we should set a goal to achieve 70% recovery across all packaging by 2020.”

“Government has assessed packaging as having relatively low risk of harm but one which offers very high resource efficiency opportunities. We agree with this assessment. We do not however agree with the assessment that the packaging industry cannot self-regulate. We can and we have done as our two accredited schemes show and it’s now incumbent on us to extend our work programme to meet government and community expectations.”

The Fonterra Milk for Schools product stewardship scheme covers the collection of used packaging generated through its nationwide programme.

The used packaging is processed at Fonterra sites before being sent to international recycling facilities overseas, where it is broken down and used to make products such as roof tiles, books and paper.

As part of the scheme, each participating school is also visited by Fonterra to talk about the recycling aspect of the scheme and the importance of caring for the environment.

The Public Place Recycling product stewardship scheme funds projects to promote and influence the recycling of plastic, paper, aluminium and glass containers in public places, including research, infrastructure and educational programmes.

It is managed by the Glass Packaging Forum and scheme members include companies that manufacture products or packaging that are consumed mainly in public places. The scheme also includes venues where these products are consumed.
The scheme will also provide annual data on the amount of packaging and organic waste collected for recycling through the Love NZ branded public place recycling bins in New Zealand.

“These two newly-accredited recycling schemes show that industry is taking responsibility for waste,” Ms Adams says. “Both schemes recognise the important role industry has to play in encouraging the sensible disposal of waste, and educating the community about the value of recycling.”

Under the Waste Minimisation Act, the Minister for the Environment has the ability to recognise product stewardship schemes through accreditation.
A product stewardship scheme will only be accredited after it has been thoroughly assessed to ensure accreditation criteria have been met. In turn, accredited schemes have to report annually to the Minister on their objectives and targets.

There are now 11 voluntary product stewardship schemes accredited in New Zealand. Click here for more information on product stewardship.

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