Soft plastics recycling reaches 70% of New Zealand

The roll-out of a soft plastics recycling scheme in Nelson today means New World, Countdown and Pak’nSave supermarkets in the South Island will offer the service.

The Love NZ Soft Plastics Recycling Programme enables people to take bread bags, shopping bags and frozen vege bags to these supermarkets for collection, re-manufacture and re-use.

The programme is already running in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Canterbury and will now roll out to stores from Nelson to Invercargill.

These additional South Island locations means 70 per cent of New Zealanders now have access to a drop-off facility within 20km of their home.

The soft plastic collected is turned into useful products such as benches and bollards, extending the life of this valuable resource. The programme will now be available at more than 350 stores nationwide, and includes South Island New World, Countdown and Pak’nSave supermarkets.

The joint initiative between the retail sector, the packaging industry and the Government to enable the recycling of soft plastics is supported by a Government Waste Minimisation Fund grant of $700,930.

This initiative builds on other recycling initiatives such as the Flight Plastics processing facility that opened in Lower Hutt last month. The facility has the capacity to turn more than 200 million plastic drink bottles a year into high grade food-safe packaging.

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