Black bin bags flap in the wind, and a small group of foragers makes its way along Petone beach, as the youth of Te Whanganui-a-Tara Māori Rugby League use their time off the field for good.
World Recycling
Superdry and Morrisons sign up to clear polythene recycling initiative
Mainetti, the global retail solutions provider, has started working with a number of retailers – including Superdry, Nutmeg at Morrisons and Very.co.uk – to provide a ‘world first’ closed loop clear polythene recycling initiative, Mainetti Polyloop.
A guide to soft plastic recycling around NZ: Where to take it, what you’re missing
A survey from KitKat revealed 54 percent of New Zealanders are accidentally sending their recycling to the landfill by including soft plastics in their kerbside recycling. Instead it needs to be dropped at a local soft plastics station.
Cleaning up the plastic pollution pandemic
The pandemic has seen a surge in single-use plastics, with disposable masks, gloves and other PPE equipment ceaselessly washing up on beaches across the globe. If we act now, this could be a pivotal moment.
Sport recycling campaign wants more businesses to jump on board
A Whanganui sport recycling initiative is seeking community support to continue fuelling the programme. Sport Whanganui is working with the Replay to bring unused sports equipment from households to benefit schools and organisations.
Fletcher Building to convert tyres into cement
Fletcher Building is hoping a new initiative will stop 3 million used tyres a year being sent to landfills, and instead use them in cement manufacturing. The tyres are burnt and the rubber, metal and ash combined into the cement.
Volunteers pick up litter at Caroline Bay as part of Seaweek
Volunteers filled four rubbish bags in less than two hours while cleaning up Timaru’s Caroline Bay beach area as part of a national week celebrating the sea. Teenager Nora Quigley organised the litter pick-up alongside the Timaru District Council.
Seal of approval, two women remove tonnes of rubbish from seal colony
Fishhooks, hundreds of shoes, 160 coffee sacks of rubbish, 48 tyres and 15 crayfish pots. That is just some of the rubbish Lorraine Shaab and Noeline Angus have removed from a seal colony on the Wainuiomata Coast.
Microwaves could be the future for plastic recycling
It’s been almost a decade since Jocelyn Doucet first experimented with recycling plastic waste in a microwave. Now he says the technology derived from those early efforts will make it possible to produce plastic almost exclusively from recycled materials.
Divers find Philippine reef covered with single-use face masks
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is washing up on coral reefs close to the Philippine capital, Manila. Environmental groups are warning that the plastic inside face masks is breaking down and being consumed by marine wildlife.
Plastics and recycling – time to get organised
While Kiwi shoppers have embraced the ban on single-use plastic bags, major businesses here are now working hard on long term solutions. There’s an urgent need to rethink and redesign the products we make together with their packaging.
New plant-based plastic can be printed — and fully recycled
A new bio-based plastic has been made by researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany that can be recycled with near-perfect efficiency, recovering 96 per cent of the starting material.