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Public recycling bins have made their first appearance in an Upper Hutt park thanks to help from The Packaging Forum.
25 June 2021
Maidstone Max – Tō Tātou Papa Tākaro, which was recently redeveloped by the Upper Hutt City Council, has been kitted out with four colour-coded public place recycling and rubbish bins. This, thanks in part to a $5,400 grant from the Forum.
Council Waste Minimisation Officer Richard Schouten says the bins take glass, mixed recycling and general waste. “Maidstone Max – Tō Tātou Papa Tākaro is Upper Hutt’s premier adventure play space, and is a great example of putting a waste minimisation lens across a large public infrastructure project.
“These recycling bins are a first for an Upper Hutt public park and the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive. The young people in our community are in tune with sustainability and waste minimisation and it’s been exciting to see them embrace the new recycling bins in their shared social spaces.”
Richard says the bins’ standardised colours make it easy for the public to use them correctly. These bins are seen across many other districts throughout the country, so the public instantly recognise what they are.”
The packaging Forum CEO Rob Langford says the colour-coded bins were originally designed as part of the Litter Less Recycle More project, but are available through the Forum’s bin partner Tilley Bins to anyone wanting to install the well-recognised system. There are now over 160 sets of these bins in 18 regions, he says.
“We are thrilled to have the bins we designed as the first in a park in Upper Hutt,” Rob says. “They were designed to make recycling easy and we’ve found that they work very well.”
The park was reopened at the end of a nine-month redevelopment which included a remodelled playground, wheelchair access, state-of-the-art skate park, pump track and half basketball court among its features and attractions.
A recent survey on public place recycling and litter has seen a mixed bag of results, with awareness around public bins increasing but willingness to make extra effort to use them declining.
07 April 2021
The survey, conducted in early March by Horizon Research for The Packaging Forum, also found more people believe there is a problem with litter where they lived, compared with a year earlier.
The survey spoke to over 1,200 people about public place recycling and rubbish bins and found the number of people who have access to public bins continued upwards to 2.4 million adults (66% of respondents). This was an increase of 2% on 2020 and 25% from the first survey in 2014.
Bins to make recycling easier, better
The Packaging Forum CEO Rob Langford says they have been working over recent years to rollout new colour-coded bins which help making recycling and disposing of rubbish easier to get right.
“There are a lot of people who want to do the right thing and recycle, but don’t have the information to do so correctly which causes unintended contamination issues. With the right information they have the potential to have a hugely positive impact.”
While awareness of these colour-coded bins declined slightly to 50%, it was still well up from 37% in 2019.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact and the research shows a drop in awareness where the bins were removed during lockdown but have not been returned,” Rob says.
It was very encouraging to see awareness was highest among people aged 18 to 24, he says. “Those aged 75 and over had just as much awareness, so it’s the group in the middle where more focus is needed.”
The colour-coded bins have continued to be very effective, Rob says, with 81% of people reporting they made knowing what to recycle and what to put in the rubbish easier. “This has been the consistent response over the past three years, so the design is working.”
More litter, less effort
He says it was interesting to see that while litter was perceived as more of a problem, with 34% people agreeing it was (up 5%), individuals were less likely to make an extra effort to use public bins. The report showed 28% of people would walk more than 40 metres to find a bin, down from 37% in 2020.
However, while attitudes towards telling someone else to pick up litter they had dropped changed little from 2020, people were slightly more likely to pick up litter themselves – up 3% to 39%.
MEDIA RELEASE: The Public Place Recycling Scheme‘s annual report is now available.
19 June 2020
New Zealand is winning the war on litter, a recent survey shows, with more people aware of public bins, more likely to put litter and recycling in the correct bin, and feel litter is less of a problem in their area.
20 April 2020
The survey, conducted by Horizon Research for The Packaging Forum, spoke to over 1000 people about the Forum’s Public Place Recycling Scheme bins and the Love NZ brand. It found that some 2.3 million adults have public place rubbish and recycling bin in their area.
Public Place Recycling Scheme Manager Lyn Mayes says the statistics are very encouraging. “Two out of three New Zealanders (64%) say they have public place rubbish and recycling bins in their area – up from 40% in 2015.
“We have worked hard with councils and businesses around New Zealand to increase ‘binfrastructure’ and to introduce standardised colours and signage to make it that much easier for people do the right thing and put litter or recycling in the correct bin. It’s great to know it’s working.”
The number of young adults (18-24 years-old) aware of the scheme’s new colour-coded bins, or who have public place recycling bins in their area is a good sign for the future, Lyn says. The survey showed 79% of them have bins in their area and 75% are aware of the new bins.
The colour-coded bins were introduced in 2017 as part of the nationwide Let’s Put Litter in its Place campaign run in partnership with Be a Tidy Kiwi, are having an impact, Lyn says.
“Eighty-three percent of people in the survey say standardised colours and signage make it easier to choose the right bin when throwing away rubbish or recycling while they are out and about.”
The survey shows there is a corresponding decrease in people’s concern around the amount of litter in their area. “This has dropped significantly from 44% in 2019 to 29% this year,” Lyn says.
“Our awareness campaign has seen thousands of Kiwis, including the Prime Minister, politicians and celebrities, pledge to ‘Be a Tidy Kiwi’ and stop littering. It’s rewarding to see that one in three understood the idea behind the campaign and would now ask someone to pick up litter if they saw someone drop it, while a similar number would pick litter up themselves.”
Women, she says, were shown to be more like than men to ask someone to pick up litter.
Not all the statistics showed improvements. People’s willingness to walk a short distance to find a bin had changed little, with 79% prepared to walk more than 10 metres – the same as 2019.
However, there was an increase in the number of people prepared to walk more than 40 metres to find a bin, with 37% saying they would – up from 29% in 2019 and 23% in 2018.
