One good habit that appears to have been lost during lockdown is recycling.
A Christchurch plant that processes the region's recycling is having to dump up to 20 truckloads a day of contaminated material at a cost of a $1000 a pop.
Here's a list of things that don't go in your recycling bin: gas bottles, tyres, guns, knives, engine blocks and microwave ovens.
Yet all these items have turned up at Christchurch's recycling depot in the last month. It's causing a massive problem.
"This pile here is the rejected loads from today," EcoCentral CEO Craig Downie says.
"And the reason they're rejected is because they're contaminated with food waste, green waste like lawn clippings and solvent chemicals like oil and petrol that people throw out."
During lockdown recycling processing was put on hold to protect the staff here at the plant - people were allowed to put rubbish in their recycling bin because it was all going to landfill.
Processing has been back up and running for over a month and yet people are still putting rubbish in their recycling bin and a lot of it.
"On average we get 60 trucks a day," Downie says. "Of those deliveries, 15 to 20 can be rejected in a day and on some days we've had to reject the entire days loads because they are nothing but rubbish trucks."
By comparison, last year the plant only rejected 23 loads in total.
"People need to get back to pre-COVID habits of doing the right thing and doing their bit for recycling," Downie says.
A plea from the people left cleaning up the mess.
