Out of the bin, and into the recycling

For what is essentially a load of rubbish, Upper Hutt residents are getting a pat on the back from their council.

Rubbish collection volumes are down by 18 per cent, and Upper Hutt City Council says the fall coincides with a jump in residential recycling.

Council infrastructure director Lachlan Wallach said households threw out an average of 359 kilograms of waste in rubbish bags last financial year – an 18 per cent decrease on the previous year.

He believed economic factors were partly responsible for the decline. The user-pays system, whereby residents buy rubbish bags at the supermarket, was effective in making people think about what they threw away.

The council had also improved recycling collection services, leading to a decrease in illegal dumping and a rise in kerbside recycling.

Though Upper Hutt households put an average of 154kg of recyclable materials on their kerbsides during the year, they were outperformed by Wellington city households, which averaged 190kg each.

Wellington City Council's CitiOperations manager, Mike Mendonca, said not all of that would be recycled, because dirty items were often discarded and some people mixed up recyclables. In Wellington, about 5 per cent of what was collected was "contaminated", compared with about 2 per cent in Upper Hutt.

Not all councils are experiencing an increase in recycling.

Hutt City Council's environmental sustainability officer, Nicolette West, said it was possible that economic factors were cutting into recycling.

Last year, for the first time in 10 years, the council saw a slight decrease in the amount of materials left in recycling bins and collection points. It collected 7349 tonnes from kerbside and collection points compared with 7444 tonnes the previous year.

Porirua City Council also recorded a slight decrease in kerbside recycling and solid waste. The council collected 2631 tonnes in kerbside recycling during the last financial year, down from 2828 tonnes the previous year.

Manager Eddy Klaassen said the council recorded a slight rise in the amount of waste it collected in rubbish bags, which indicated that people were not buying any less.