Recycling

In your glass crate:

• glass bottles and jars in your glass crate

In your wheelie bin:

• paper and cardboard (including pizza boxes)
• plastic bottles, trays and containers with marked 1, 2 and 5
• aluminium and steel tins and cans

Plastics numbered 1, 2 and 5 are recyclable and include soft drink bottles, sports bottles, water bottles, milk bottles, cleaning products, and 2-litre ice-cream containers. You can pop these into your wheelie bin. Plastics that have the number 3, 4, 6 or 7 on them are “disposable” plastics, and we encourage you to avoid using these plastics, if you can.

Plastics numbered 3, 4, 6 and 7 (disposable) include: yoghurt pots, takeaway grocery bags, squeezable bottles, hard containers, medicine bottles, plastic plates/cutlery. Unfortunately, plastics numbered 3, 4, 6 and 7 are no longer able to be recycled because of changes in the global recycling market.

Wairarapa Councils have been stockpiling plastics that can’t be recycled in the hope a market will open up internationally. Fortunately, these types of plastics only make up between 3-5 per cent (based on weight) of what all Wairarapa residents put in their recycling bins.

You can now recycle soft plastics at the following locations:

• The Warehouse, Masterton
• Countdown, Masterton
• MDC Transfer Station, Nursey Road

See the Recycling Kiwi website for a list of what soft plastics can be recycled.

You can put out a maximum of two crates every fortnight. You must use official crates which are sturdy and safe for lifting by our contractors. If you find that you are exceeding this amount you can always drop off any other recycling at the Transfer Station free of charge.

Damaged bins will be repaired or replaced by Council, except for when they have been when obviously damaged by users (such as incorrectly towing it behind a vehicle).

If your wheelie bin is missing or stolen, please contact our Cutomer Service Centre on 06 06 370 6300. Each bin has a unique ID number that can be scanned to locate it in the Masterton district.

If your bin is stolen, your first bin will be replaced with no charge. After the first replacement bin, property owners will be charged $60 per bin for replacements.

No. The wheelie bin is allocated to the property and must stay with the property for the new owners or tenants to use.

No. You can use either the green or maroon coloured crates, or both for glass recycling.

The recycling crates can’t have glass above the rim of the crate. That’s to make sure the bins aren’t too heavy to carry and glass doesn’t fall out and break when the recycling team is emptying the bins.

You can now recycle household batteries at the following locations:

• MDC Transfer Station, Nursery Road
• Wairarapa Resource Centre, King Street, Masterton

Place a piece of masking tape over the positive terminal end so that it doesn’t come into contact with metal of other batteries.

You can take recycling to the local transfer station. There is no extra charge. It justs needs to be sorted into the relevant containers.

Polysterene can be put into a bag and tied off to reduce fly away polysterene. Tied-off bags ca be put into Council rubbish bags or lidded rubbish bins for kerbside collection. We do not accept large pieces or commercial volumes of polystyrene in kerbside collections or at transfer stations.