Rubbish & recycling  |  11h ago

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Christchurch residents are earning top marks for their best year yet at recycling.

Christchurch City Council contractors collect about 20 to 30 truckloads of recycling every weekday, which equated to 26,167 tonnes over the last year.

Throughout 2025, the vast majority of this material was recycled, with just 1 per cent of truckloads sent to landfill due to contamination of non-recyclable material.

Resource Recovery Manager Dr Alec McNeil says it’s fantastic to see such a low number sent to landfill, as it marks the best year of recycling Christchurch has had since the numbers started to be tracked.

“Since we launched our bin good campaign and established a permanent recycling educator team, there’s been a significant drop in the number of loads being rejected due to high levels of contamination,” Dr McNeil says.

“At the campaign launch in 2020, we were rejecting of 43 per cent of kerbside recycling truckloads. This has continuously dropped over the years, and we’re stoked with the current result of just 1 per cent.”

Dr McNeil says this means very significant cost savings to ratepayers, as sending a truckload to landfill costs up to $1000 more than recycling it.

The Resource Recovery team has also had a bumper uptake in the number of gold stars awarded to residents.

“Our bin educator team have been essential in encouraging residents to improve the quality of their recycling. They give out gold star stickers to residents who have only the right stuff in their bins,” Dr McNeil says.

“In the last year we’ve had a 100 per cent increase in the amount of gold stars awarded, putting us at one third of all bins audited in Christchurch with a gold star.”

When someone has minor contamination in their bin, the bin educators deliver a relevant feedback pamphlet, and the bin is still emptied.

If a bin is too contaminated to empty, a tag is left on the bin, and after three strikes the bin may be removed

Dr McNeil says that while Christchurch residents are performing very well, there’s still materials that are tripping people up.

“Our most common contaminant is soft plastics. We want to remind our residents that soft plastics, such as bread bags, bubble wrap and courier bags cannot go in kerbside recycling anywhere in New Zealand, even if they say they are recyclable,” Dr McNeil says.

“Our recycling machinery isn’t able to process soft plastics, and there’s also a limited end use for them.”

Cleaned soft plastics can be taken to The Warehouse or supermarket receptables for specialised recycling or disposed of in your red bin.

Find out what you can put in your yellow bin on the Council’s website or download our Christchurch Bins app which includes a handy look up tool.

Find out more on how recycling is sorted at the Ecosort.