Kerbside Recycling

Kerbside recycling in Christchurch and Waimakariri is undertaken by Real Recycling, a unique partnership between the Christchurch City Council, Waimakariri District Council, Transpacific Industries  (the collectors), and MetaNZ (the processors).

Separating the collection and marketing functions of kerbside recycling collection through different contracts ensures that collection services are not compromised by market fluctuations, and that marketing decisions for the recovered materials are based on achieving long-term sustainable outcomes.

The two Councils receive a set percentage of the gross sales from materials recovered through the kerbside recycling collection. This creates a strong incentive for MetaNZ to maximise opportunities for marketing recovered materials, while at the same time minimising processing costs in order to benefit both parties.

‘Real Recycling’ means we:

• recognise all benefits of recycling eg local employment, resource use and conservation through triple bottom line (economic, social and environmental) reporting.
• collect only those materials that have stable markets, rather than collecting everything and discarding the hard-to-recycle materials as markets waiver. (This also places a responsibility on manufacturers to produce and use more recyclable packaging, rather than expecting local councils to bear the cost of difficult-to-recycle materials).
• continue to collect and recycle materials no matter what else happens (ie we will not cease collection of particular commodities when markets drop).

Real Recycling requires input from all involved: businesses and industry, central and local government, producers, importers and - most importantly - the consumer. Please support recycling by choosing items presented for sale in recyclable packaging.

As new or secure markets for materials are developed by MetaNZ, more materials can be recovered through the Real Recycling kerbside collection.

Some materials may be less economic to recover and market, so MetaNZ works on a ‘bundling approach’ - extra revenue generated from one commodity can help off-set costs incurred in processing and marketing another, less in-demand product. A good example of this is the way paper collection subsidises glass collection.