Recycling may seem as simple as separating your cardboard, plastic and glass but there is a strong possibility you are doing it wrong.
By simply leaving plastic on tissue boxes, lids on wine bottles, food scraps in pizza boxes and putting your recycling in plastic bags, it all becomes contaminated and ends up as general waste.
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Following China's requirement that any recyclable materials being sent there have very low level contamination, rinsing and cleaning any recyclable items is now more important than ever.
Recycling is stockpiling around New Zealand due to the restrictions and councils are struggling to find buyers.
WasteMINZ chief executive Paul Evans said, "Without positive action to address the issue, recyclable material could be sent to landfill, councils and communities will suffer financially, and operators could go out of business."
There is also a chance that some things you are recycling aren't recyclable at all.
Clothes and fabrics can't be recycled and neither can composite items such as Pringles tins, which are made of metal, cardboard and plastic.
Currently, New Zealand's national recycling rate is one of the lowest in the developed world.
Newshub.
