Two Northland district councils are bracing themselves for mountains of recycling to sort through after culling kerbside collections during the Covid-19 lockdown.
While Whangārei District Council is continuing to provide recycling as an essential service to its residents for the four-week period, the Far North and Kaipara councils are urgingresidents to hoard items until after the lockdown finishes.
This has prompted concerns residents will dump recyclable items in the rubbish bin, so they end up in landfill.
The Far North District Council said recyclables will not be collected because items have to be manually sorted by workers.
Recyclables will not be accepted at transfer stations for the same reason.
Council general manager infrastructure and asset management Andy Finch said residents should stockpile their recycling if they can store it safely and hygienically.
If this is not possible, residents can include it in their normal rubbish, he said.
"We believe most residents will understand this is an unprecedented situation and will agree our priority should be to protect the health and safety of those employed to sort recycling," he said.
"We expect to see a large volume of recycling once the restrictions are lifted. We will work with contractors to ensure this is sorted, baled and shipped as quickly as possible."
Far North District Council general manager infrastructure and asset management Andy Finch is urging residents to stockpile recycling. Photo / file
Kaipara District Council is also asking residents to clean and stockpile recycling until the country moves out of lockdown.
Its transfer stations at Hakaru and Dargaville are currently closed to the public.
"These are unprecedented times," council spokesman Ben Hope said.
"While the collection of rubbish is an essential service, many councils up and down the country aren't taking recycling, as it reduces the amount of time spent on the road by the contractors.
"The contractor is already planning how they will collect the stockpiled recycling as, obviously, it will be substantially more than what would be put out for a normal weekly collection."
While the Ministry for the Environment has confirmed recycling is an essential service, the decision to collect and process recyclables is at the discretion of councils, contractors and processors.
Kerikeri conservationist Barbara Belger – who leads the group Plastic Free Kerikeri – said the move to stop kerbside recycling was "horrendous".
"If that's not an essential service, then I don't know what is," Belger said.
"That's totally disrespectful of anything that we have achieved. We're going to end up in a bottleneck even worse than when the whole plastic crisis started."
Whangarei District Council is still offering residents a kerbside recycling service during the lockdown. Photo / John Stone
Whangārei District Council solid waste engineer David Lindsay said the council's recycling collection contractor is following Ministry of Health advice to reduce the risk for their staff and minimise the potential to spread the virus.
Personal Protective Equipment and disinfectant are supplied to all staff and they are trained to follow the recommended cleaning and social distancing protocols, he said.
"To reduce the need for manual sorting at the kerbside, the glass bottles and jars are not being colour-sorted manually at the moment; the glass is still being recycled in Auckland.
"Our other recycling streams (plastic, metal cans, paper and cardboard) are being sorted through automated sort lines in Auckland. This has not changed due to Covid-19."
Zero waste advocate Jane Banfield thinks councils should introduce community run recycling stations where residents sort items themselves.
Far North Zero Waste spokeswoman Jane Banfield said councils should introduce community-run recycling stations in the future, where residents sort items themselves.
"If this signals the end of kerbside recycling and the start of community stations, it would be a big step forward."
She urged residents to choose items that have the least packaging and try to "refuse and reuse" to avoid recycling altogether.
