"On a personal level I don't believe it's the role of our council to demand a new nationwide tax to change consumer behaviour. It may be that the wider council has a different view, but I have not yet had the chance to discuss this with other elected members. As Mayor, I need to have that discussion."
When contacted by Hamilton News, eight elected members of Hamilton City Council said they were personally in favour of a mandatory nationwide plastic bag levy.
In favour were deputy mayor Martin Gallagher and councillors Angela O'Leary, Rob Pascoe, Dave Macpherson, James Casson, Geoff Taylor, Siggi Henry, Paula Southgate.
Along with Mayor King, councillors Gary Mallett and Mark Bunting were against the levy for different reasons. Mallett said there was nothing wrong with plastic bags, whereas Bunting said they should be banned outright.
Councillor Leo Tooman did not yet hold a position, and Philip Yeung was on leave due to illness.
If a decision of whether to support the signing of the letter for a national plastic bag levy were put on the table in Council today, it would theoretically contain a majority of 8 out of 12 sitting members pledging support for the request for Hamilton's mayor to sign the letter to be acted upon.
Hamilton News approached Mayor King with these findings, but he said he would still not be signing the letter.
"However, as I have said before, if the majority of Hamilton's Councillors supported the proposals and it went to the Local Government New Zealand conference then I would support it," he said.
In July 2015, Hamilton mayor Julie Hardaker represented the city at a Local Government New Zealand conference in Rotorua, casting Hamilton City Council's democratically decided vote in favour of a potential future plastic bag levy.
The remit has already been passed by LGNZ, with 89% of New Zealand Mayors having voted for it, making it the prevailing stance of the representative body.
The number of Waikato mayors signing the letter is increasing. Rotorua, Hauraki, Thames-Coromandel and South Waikato had all signed at the time this paper was printed.
Trent Fowler, compliance manager at city waters for Hamilton City Council, said Hamilton was the first city in the country to adopt the Love New Zealand programme.
The scheme advocates recycling soft plastics, including plastic bags, by placing them in collection bins at 17 supermarkets in the city.
The material is then transported to Abilities Incorporated in Auckland, where people with disabilities are employed to sort through the collection.
Hamilton City Council's waste minimisation advisor Charlotte Catmur said the soft plastics are then sent overseas.
"From Auckland at the moment they're actually being sent to Melbourne where they're being processed into outdoor benches, flooring, materials that are pretty long lasting but could then be recycled again themselves," she said.
"There is, obviously, a look at getting a plant up and running here, but that is being organised through the Packaging Forum, so we are linked into that scheme at the moment."
Mr Fowler said from May 2016 to April 2017, 5293 bags worth of soft plastics were collected from Hamilton for recycling.
That amounts to about 20.7 tonnes of soft plastic having been recycled in that time by Hamilton.
However, 1768 tonnes of soft plastic waste goes to landfill in Hamilton every year.
Ms Catmur added one of the biggest challenges dealing with soft plastics was the cost of doing the processing, and collecting the necessary volumes to make it financially viable.
