Kerbside recycling starts in Whanganui on July 1

With less than a week to go until Whanganui’s new kerbside recycling service kicks off, Whanganui District Council and contractor Low Cost Bins want to ensure residents know how to recycle correctly.

The first day of collections will be Monday, July 1, and the council’s community, property and places general manager Sarah O’Hagan said for most households, recycling would be collected one business day before their usual rubbish day.

“That means if your rubbish is normally collected on a Tuesday, your recycling day should be Monday - or if your rubbish day is Monday, your recycling day will likely be Friday. However, there are a few grey areas with streets on the fringes of collection zones or areas with multiple rubbish days, so households should now have received letters from us to confirm their collection days.”

O’Hagan said the first few weeks would be “a bit of a learning curve for everyone”.

“With a brand-new service like this, involving more than 17,000 households, there’s always likely to be a few teething issues. So, we’re urging people to carefully read through the information booklet they received - or visit the recycling page on the council website - to ensure they have a good understanding of how to recycle correctly.”

She said all households in the service area should have received three recycling crates. Anyone who has not should contact the council by emailing yourcouncil@whanganui.govt.nz or report the issue via the free Antenno app.

When people put recyclables into the crates, they need to be separated.

Plastic types one, two and five, tins and cans go in one crate, glass bottles and jars in another, and paper and cardboard go into the third crate.

O’Hagan said people could use more than one crate for one of the groups. For example, they could put out two crates of glass if they had a big load of bottles in a given week. However, different groups could not be mixed in the same crate.

“To make sure as much of the material collected as possible is recycled, it’s crucial that people take care to separate their material into the correct groups, as well as washing out any food or residue and removing lids. Our recycling trucks have multiple compartments to keep the different materials separated.”

O’Hagan said people should avoid overfilling their crates and ensure they place them at the kerb correctly.

“If you fill a crate past the top, it can pose a safety risk to our contractors, and will also mean materials are more prone to being blown out by the wind. If you put out a crate that’s filled past the top, you risk it not being collected. People should also take care to place their crates as close to the kerbside as possible to avoid blocking the footpath.”

For more information on kerbside recycling, including a full list of what can and can’t be recycled and details about support services for people who have difficulty taking their crates to the kerb, visit whanganui.govt.nz/recycling.