Photo: Supplied / Auckland Council
Changes to Auckland's kerbside recycling are set to hit from next month as new national standards come into play.
From 1 February, only paper and cardboard, glass, tin cans and plastic types 1, 2 and 5, will be accepted for recycling, Auckland Council announced on Thursday.
Aerosol cans, tetrapacks, bottle lids, and all other types of plastics can no longer go in the recycling bin.
Auckland city councillor Richard Hills said those items only made up about 1 percent of all recycling in the city.
He said narrowing down what is able to be recycled in Auckand will reduce contamination, which costs $3 million to sort every year.
"The overall issue we have on the contamination side at the moment is things that aren't supposed to be recycled. So like, gas canisters, carpets, nappies, we've even had dead animals. We've never been able to take plastic bags, they really ruin the machines that we do the recycling with."
"It's a government change to make it simpler to advertise across New Zealand, but also prevent a lot of the contamination that reduces the value of the overall recycling," he said.
Hills said while there was still a cost and carbon impact to using recyclable plastic, these changes would mean that recycled products were of higher quality.
"Our main goal would be that people are using fewer and fewer single use items anyway and reducing the need for recycling in the first place.
"But, what we will take from February 1 are the most likely things to be reused and recycled."
Auckland Council collects about 132,000 tonnes of recycling every year from kerbside recycling bins, which are sent to facilities onshore and offshore.
The changes, announced by the Labour government last year, mean the same items will be accepted for kerbside recycling across New Zealand.
Previously, no one item was recycled by all councils.