Recycling works

Find out what you can recycle, and what you can't; and how recycled things get used.

Glass bottles and jars
All metal food and drink cans
Most paper and cardboard, including glossy pamphlets, paper packaging, magazines and envelopes
Plastic with a number 1 or 2 recycle logo - soft drink bottles, milk and detergent bottles.

PET - stands for PolyEthylene Terephthalate. A clear, tough plastic often used in drink bottles
High Density PolyEthylene. Hard to semi flexible, opaque usually white or coloured. Often used for milk, cream and shampoo bottles.

Clean out bottles, jars and cans first. Food and drink scraps left behind are smelly and attract rats and mice at recycling plants.
Take lids off.
Flatten cardboard boxes.

Broken glass, mirrors, light bulbs, oven dishes, pyrex, crystal or ornamental glass
Milk cartons and other wax-coated paper
Foil-lined paper
Anything contaminated with food scraps such as used pizza boxes
Number 3, 4 and 5 numbered plastics can only be recycled in areas where there is a market for them. Currently, most councils in the region don't recycle them. To see if yours does, check their website here
Silver foil including food trays, chippie and ice cream packeShopping bags, bread bags
Bottle tops.

Bottles and jars get made into new bottles and jars at a plant in Auckland. They are also sometimes made into aggregate for asphalt, swimming pool filters or even an abrasive cleaner that jewellers use
Soft drink bottles and other Number 1 plastics are often reused as the synthetic component (like polyester) of clothing. For example, 25 bottles can be recycled into a polar fleece
Milk and detergent bottles (Number 2 plastics) are reprocessed into a range of products including drainage pipes, plant pots and bread crates. An Otaki firm, Pacific Plastic Recyclers, makes these products and more using hundreds of tonnes of Number 2 plastics each year
Steel cans are sent to Auckland, re-smelted, and used in new products including cars and bridges. Aluminium cans are sorted, crushed and baled into 'bricks' for transporting overseas is used to make new cans. They can be recycled again and again
Cardboard is reused and made into new paperboard and corrugated boxes. Newspapers are made into new newsprint, insulation and animal bedding. Office paper is recycled into writing paper, tissue and towel products. Telephone books are recycled into egg cartons and wine boxes. One company alone, Carter Holt Harvey's 'FullCircle', last year recycled nearly 200,000 tonnes of waste paper and cardboard from across New Zealand, including the Wellington region.