It's now been more than a year since legislation aligned recycling rules for most of the country, but how has that gone? The changes meant only plastics numbered 1, 2 and 5 would be collected by kerbside recyclers and that all lids would have to be removed and put in the rubbish.
At the time of the change in February last year, 16 per cent of items in recycling bins was typically not able to be recycled and were contaminating bins. The alignment was for all councils with kerbside recycling to follow the same rules, as previously they differed per region. So how much of our plastic is still being bundled off to buyers overseas? The Ministry for the Environment's general manager of waste systems and operations Shaun Lewis.
