Recycling is important, right? For many people, though, knowing what can and can’t be recycled is confusing. If you’re one of those people, read on.
A new lease of life
In 2005, due to our concern about the huge amount of rubbish ending up in landfill, we set up a recycling plant in Manukau, South Auckland. A large portion of the waste that we collect is unloaded here and sorted by our staff. Then, we ship any recyclables that we uncover to several recycling centres.
There is no doubt that recycling is good for the environment. Doing so reduces the amount of unrenewable resources needed to make new products, lessens pollution and also creates jobs. Auckland-based company Reharvest Timber Products makes good use of timber waste by supplying woodchips throughout New Zealand for equestrian arenas, playgrounds and public spaces.
So, what is recyclable? Good question. To follow are the materials that we can recycle at the Pink Bins recycling plant:
Cardboard & paper
Unlike some other items, cardboard and paper is straightforward to recycle. However, we can’t recover any laminated or plastic-covered products. Also, greasy fasts-food cartons are usually too contaminated to recycle.
Timber
We can recover any construction joinery, framing timber and plywood. Treated wood is okay, as is wood with nails and small bolts up to 8 mm in size. Unfortunately, we can’t recover MDF or Melteca-type material.
Steel
We love steel! And, if it is slightly contaminated with plastic or other waste, that’s okay because we use a shredding process to remove any contamination, which we then send to landfill.
Non-ferrous metals
Electronic and technology industries, etc., rely on metals such as aluminium, stainless steel, copper, wire, brass and lead. So, we process these metals to the best possible state and sell them to the market.
Plasterboard
We can recover any brand of plasterboard except for the older style that contains fibreglass.
Green waste
Tree trimmings, grass and hedges are okay. However, we can’t process branches that are over 300 mm in diameter or bamboo, flax, agapanthus and succulents (palm/yuccas).
Concrete
We can take clean loads of concrete without rebar and mesh.
Recovery on demand
Do you need to dispose of bulk quantities of a specific type of waste (clean plastic grades 1 – 7 and polystyrene, for example)? Get in touch with us, and we’ll explore the market for an outlet.
More questions?
If you’re not sure whether your waste can be recycled, please contact us on 0800 746 524.