Wellington council's bad recycling blacklist grows to 2000 properties
Wednesday, 3 April 2019
General rubbish dumped in free recycling bags has led to 50 Wellington streets being blacklisted from recycling pickups.
About 2000 properties are now on the city council's recycling naughty list, up from 800 or so in 2016.
That means people living on the blacklisted streets now have to contact the council to get their bags, which will be stickered with their address so that collectors can keep an eye on them.
And it's all because some neighbours are putting rubbish in the recycling bags instead of the council's pay-as-you-go yellow rubbish bags.
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Council spokeswoman Victoria Barton-Chapple said while entire streets were blacklisted the problem wasn't the whole street, just one or two households.
'We can't identify the culprits as the bags are often grouped together.'
The hotspots were reviewed every year and, if the offending tenants had moved out, the street came off the list, she said. Residents could also request a review.
Mortimer Tce in Aro Valley is one of the blacklisted streets and resident Tim Banks said maybe the council should be working on ways of educating people, rather than punishing them for it.
'You can't really punish everyone for one person's action.'
Like many on the list, it would be an inconvenience for him to organise his own recycling bags instead of having them delivered.
Resident Chris Allen, also of Mortimer Tce, said he'd noticed some full bags being left behind by collectors.
'One of the things I've noticed is that there's no recycling for soft plastic recycling anymore [at supermarkets]. People are probably putting it in their bags.'
Allen said he filtered through everything and had never had his bag stickered. To get his own bag from the council would be 'time out of my day'.
Council waste operations manager Emily Taylor-Hall said they were not covertly filming or staking out offenders.
'Where contamination has been connected to an individual household, we initially attempt to door knock with the resident.'
No matter what they did, some people would always deliberately do the wrong thing, she said.
'Never in anyone's mind is a dirty nappy ever going to be recyclable in your kerbside recycling, and yet these are a regular occurrence of contamination both at the kerbside and at the processing plant.'
The council was revamping its recycling to target parts of Wellington which needed extra help, including student areas and those with a suspected language barrier.
'We're currently working on this at the moment, and I would hope to have something tangible towards the middle of the year.'
By comparison, the Auckland Council does not blacklist any streets or properties.
Instead, 'bin inspectors' target areas where recycling issues occur. A spokeswoman said they manually checked recycling and placed a sticker on offending bins.
'The stickers tell the householder the correct things they can have in their bins, advise them on how to fix the issue, and remind them to put their bin out on the kerb in time for the next fortnightly collection.'
On the blacklist
Abel Smith St, Adams Tce, Adelaide Rd, Allenby Tce, Aro St, Boston Tce, Central Tce, Clifton Tce, Devon St, Dixon St, Durham St.
Earls Tce, Essex St, Everton Tce, Fairlie Tce, Fairview Cres, Garden Rd, Gladstone Tce, Gordon Pl, Gordon St, Grant Rd.
Grass St, Hadfield Tce, Hampshire Ave, Hankey St, Hanson St, Hinau Rd, Holloway Rd, Kelburn Parade, Landcross St, Maarama Cres.
MacDonald Cres, Malcolm Ln, Maurice Tce, Melrose Cres, Millward St, Mortimer Tce, Moturoa St, Nairn St, Norway St, Palm Grv.
Palmer St, Percival St, Pitarua St, Plunket St, Raroa Rd, Rolleston St, Salamanca Rd, Sar St, Tasman St, The Terrace, Thompson St.