New Zealand Plastic Recycling Scheme Surpasses New Milestone

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Love NZ Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme reported total collection of 200 million individual plastic bags and wrappers since the introduction of the program. The collections were stopped for five months in December 20018. Also, the store collections have now been suspended on account of lockdown restrictions imposed by the country’s government to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

The scheme collected and recycled 212 million plastic packages during the period between April 2016 and March this year. Out of this, nearly 19 million were collected in the past ten-month period alone. Non-branded bags represented nearly 50% of the total bags collected. Branded packaging totalled 46.4% of the total collection.

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The contamination has reduced from 8.7% in the 2018 survey to 7.1% in the most recent survey. It must be noted that the contamination rate was 9% in 2017. The marked improvement indicates that consumers are now better educated to efficiently handle recyclable materials. The contamination was mainly caused by paper, rigid plastic and compostable bags, said audit on the materials carried out by Waste Not Consulting- the country’s leader in consulting services for waste minimization.

The soft plastics recycling program is supported by leading brands including Coca-Cola and Nestle.