Supermarkets disappointed their 'recyclable' meat trays aren't being recycled
Monday, 24 September 2018
'Recyclable' plastic meat trays from Wellington are being dumped in Malaysian landfills.
For two years plastic meat trays have been touted as a recyclable option to polystyrene foam trays, but in August Wellington City Council staff travelled to Malaysia and found the city's PET plastic meat trays are not being recycled at all.
Council waste operations manager Emily Taylor-Hall said in Wellington at the OJI plant, no one could tell the difference between PET and PVC trays.
'They're being lumped together, they're being sent to Malaysia and can't be recycled.'
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The council was unaware of the contamination, Taylor-Hall said.
But since returning to New Zealand at the end of August, they'd stopped accepting the trays in kerbside recycling and they were being sent to Wellington landfills instead.
'In our recycling directory it says 'please put trays in your rubbish bin for now',' Taylor-Hall said. 'We don't have anywhere for them at the moment, but we're working on it … the last thing we want is to send valuable PET to landfill.'
Other city's meat trays may also be being dumped, but the Wellington staff only visited the facilities taking the capital's waste.
An optical sensor system, which the council did not have, might be able to tell the difference between the plastics. 'People on a sorting line are not going to know the difference.'
'Some of the big supermarkets have worked really hard to put out a PET product which can be recycled,' Taylor-Hall said.
Both Countdown and Foodstuffs switched to PET in 2016.
A Foodstuffs spokeswoman said it was 'very disappointing' the trays were being dumped.
It took considerable investment and working in partnership with councils throughout New Zealand to switch to 100 per cent PET trays.
'We have had no issue with councils recycling this product – until now, with Wellington City Council only, it appears.'
'They are hand sorting plastic and not using an optical sorter as those used by processors in Auckland,' the spokeswoman said.
'Recyclers and council need to engage with the brands who are still using PVC packaging. If they are able to get the brands to switch to either PET or rPET, the problem is resolved.'
The switch to recyclable trays was designed to divert more than 100 million trays away from landfill nationally.
'To discover that this is not happening as planned … is very disappointing.'
To date, they had received no adverse feedback from other councils.
Countdown's General Manager Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Kiri Hannifin said Countdown's meat trays were made out of rPET a recycled and recyclable PET.
New Zealanders needed to be more conscious about waste, she said. Reducing the need for packaging in the first place could help deal with the over-reliance on overseas recyclers.
Packaging New Zealand executive director Sharon Humphreys said it was a shame the trays couldn't be recycled. She was not sure where the PVC trays would be coming from.
Auckland Council's recycling partner Visy has the ability to sense the type of plastic before material is sent for recycling.
Resource Recovery Manager George Fietje said they were aware there was the potential for some PVC trays to end up in PET bales, and it was a contaminate.
Christchurch City Council manager solid waste Ross Trotter said they had an optical sorter which identified and sorted different types of plastic.
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