Recycling in other parts of New Zealand

Samantha did some maths about elephants

Q. Why recycle?

When rubbish gets buried in an air pocket down within 10-20 years or sooner. But if it gets squashed down with no air it will be more than 60 years before it even STARTS to break down.

• Banana skins take 2 years to break down - a small worm farm will eat a banana skin in 2 weeks
•  Cans take 500 years to break down
• Glass bottles can take 1000 years to break down
• Plastic bags take 10 - 20 years to break down 
• Cigarette butts take 1 - 5 years to break down

 Natural things like wood, cotton and wool will break down fairly quickly considering that most man made stuff won't break down at all.  Which is why we have to recycle to re-use the things that won't disintegrate.

Q.  Can you recycle computers?

A. Auckland is starting to recycle more high tech things as well.  There is a place called the Ark Computer Company on the North Shore that recycles computers and parts and then sells them cheaply to schools.

 Q.  Why should we recycle paper?

A.  To make 1 kg of paper it first takes 20 years for the tree to grow then it takes between 10 and 17 trees to print 7,000 copies of newspaper.

How much do people in New Zealand recycle?

We compared some of the rubbish statistics to the size of an elephant, so it is easier to imagine how much the rubbish is.  One elephant weighs 5 tonnes approximately.

Q.  Do people in Dunedin recycle?

A.  Yes, but not many.  In the year 2000 93% of rubbish went to landfills. That is 45000 Tonnes  or to compare the weight -  9000 elephants. 4% to composting  - 2200 Tonnes = 440 elephants. 3% to recycling - 1400 Tonnes = 286 elephants. Total 48600 tonnes of rubbish per year. Dunedin has adopted a zero waste policy and hopes to have no rubbish at all in the future.

Q.  Do people on the North Shore recycle?

A. Yes. We put out 21,038 tonnes each year thats only 4207 elephants!!!

The North Shore recycles 9,475 tonnes of paper- 1895 elephants - 112 tonnes of aluminium cans- 22 elephants -584 tonnes of plastic- 116 elephants -4,325 tonnes of glass- 865 elephants and 484 tonnes of steel cans- 96 elephants.

All up thats a total of  36,018 tonnes of recycled stuff a year 7,201- elephants

Q. What can you recycle in Dunedin?

A. Cardboard, Aluminium drink cans, Glass bottles, Jars:brown, green, and clear beer bottles, white paper, newspaper, old telephone books, magazines, junk mail, computers, computer parts, super market bags, steel tins, plastic, clothing, untreated sawdust and sheep manure,  Nic-cad batteries, car batteries, used motor oil, antifreeze,  photocopy paper.

   Q. What can you recycle on the North Shore?

A. Paper, aluminium cans, plastic, glass, steel cans, computers, oil, already recycled things and anything with the recycling logo on the bottom with a 1 or 2 on it.  The council give each household a green recycling bin and have a weekly free collection.

A new idea from the North Shore Council has been to send out rates demands in envelopes that can be turned over and re-used to send your cheque back with your payment.  This means that every house on the North Shore will use five less envelopes a year!  Only a small idea, but added with everything else, it is a help.

Q. What Can You Recycle in Wellington?

A. Paper, Cardboard, magazines, window envelopes, brown corrugated cardboard, bottles, jars, plastics numbered 1-3, shopping bags, bread bags, aluminium cans and beer and soft drink cans.   (Wellington people can recycle plastics with a 3, North Shore only do 1 - 2 at this stage).

Q.  What Can You Recycle in Christchurch?

All recycling  has to be washed and unbroken.  You can recycle bottles, jars, plastic milk and cream bottles and plastics with Number 1, aluminium cans, steel cans, newspapers, cardboard, egg cartons.

Q.  Where does Wellington rubbish go?

A.  Softdrink bottles go to Australia to make new softdrink bottles, cans go to Australia for reprocessing, steel cans go to Auckland to be made into new products.

If someone doesn't recycle correctly, the entire batch has to be dumped, because it will contaminate the new products, so it's really important to recycle correctly.

Used goods like furniture, toys, books etc that get sent to the Landfill can be bought by other people from the Resource Recovery Centre.

Conclusion

Many cities in New Zealand have adopted a Zero Waste plan and all of them are on the right track and are hoping that there will be no more waste by the year 2015.

We hope our school will adopt this policy and the children will be involved in studying it and finding the solutions.

We want trees, not rubbish.

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