Timaru District Council is introducing a new white bin lid to help reduce the cost to the community of recycling contamination.

Contamination in recycling is around 25%, equalling approximately 540 tonnes of recycling going into landfill due to contamination, shortening the life of the landfill at a significant cost to the community.

Currently households who ignore three warnings have their recycling collection suspended, and now their yellow bin lid will be swapped for a white one to make it easier for the truck drivers to identify.

The red, green and blue bins will continue to be collected following a suspension.

“The vast majority of the community makes the effort to recycle properly, but there are still a small number of households putting inappropriate items such as dirty nappies in the recycling bin, which can mean a whole truckload has to be sent to landfill,” said Grant Hamel, Waste Operations Manager.

To put it into perspective the figures show that on 31 July 2024 only 163 bin collections out of a total of 21,470 have been suspended.

“This isn’t about causing anyone any embarrassment; the white lids are simply a way for the people in the trucks to easily identify which bins are not to be collected.

“We’re hoping that in working to improve our overall recycling performance you’ll hopefully not see many of these lids in use.”

People will have a white bin lid installed after the third time in a 12-month period where a bin is found to be contaminated.

A final notice from Council will be given to a member of the household to sign and return to say they will use the bin properly in future. If the letter is not returned with a signature of the household, the white bin lid will be installed by the contractor and the bin will not be emptied.

Those who already have their service suspended will be contacted to offer them the opportunity to return a letter to restart service prior to their bin lid being replaced.

To support this initiative, updated information about what goes in each bin will be going out to the community in the upcoming rates bills, as well as being advertised through usual council channels.

These items can go in your yellow bin

• Any plastic with a number 1, 2 or 5 inside the recycling triangle e.g. recyclable meat trays 1, ice cream containers 5 and milk bottles 2.
• Containers - rinsed with no lid e.g. for cleaning, shampoo, cosmetics, juice, sandwich spreads, beer, wine, and milk.
• Empty aluminium cans – clean with no liquids left in them.
• Paper – Flattened cardboard, books, cereal boxes, wrapping/office paper, envelopes, cards, junk mail, newspapers and magazines.
• Tins - well rinsed with loose lids placed in the red bin e.g. canned foods, pet food.