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Speaker 1: The old recycling issue was getting another airing in the

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Speaker 1: Far North. So given the district council, now face is

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Speaker 1: sending a year's worth of plastic to the landfill. So

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Speaker 1: the Chinese recycling plants, you might remember, close their business

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Speaker 1: to the rest of the world a while back. So

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Speaker 1: we're kind of stucky. And now Sue Coots is with

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Speaker 1: zero waste network and shoes with us. Soue morning, Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Was this a bit of reality your versus theory? I mean,

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Speaker 1: what really do you think the Chinese were doing with

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Speaker 1: all our plastic? I mean they weren't really recycling it,

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Speaker 1: were they.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they did their best to recycle it, but people

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Speaker 2: started sending them such a lot of mad stuff, you know,

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Speaker 2: recycling everything that we wanted to throw into our recycling bins,

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Speaker 2: sending it off to China, hoping that they'd be able

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Speaker 2: to sort our problems out. And I think what we

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Speaker 2: can take from what's happened in Northland is it's no

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Speaker 2: surprise that the colored soft drunk bottles are not going

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Speaker 2: to get recycled, like we've known that for about ten years. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think what's really surprising to me is that producers

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Speaker 2: are still choosing to sell us strengths and bottles that

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Speaker 2: aren't recyclable exactly.

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Speaker 1: So here's here's the problem. This is, I got this

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Speaker 1: this type one plastic.

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Speaker 2: Is that right, yep, that's right? Yeah, yeah, and colored,

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Speaker 2: So it's the brown ones. The green ones are dark

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Speaker 2: blue ones that are really hard to recycle because obviously,

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Speaker 2: once you put all that die into the material, it's

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Speaker 2: difficult to include it as recycled content in the next

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Speaker 2: round of product.

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Speaker 1: And when we talk about the Northern District Council, I'm

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Speaker 1: assuming it's all over the country.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, every council, every rate player has an issue with recycling,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's one reason why we really need

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Speaker 2: to come up with a bit of a better way

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Speaker 2: of doing it. Like what Well, basically, there's plenty of

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Speaker 2: good ideas out there, you know. The reason New Zealand's

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Speaker 2: got a big rubbish problem at the moment is that

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Speaker 2: we just haven't done any of them in the last

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Speaker 2: twenty years. Government's got a consultation out at the moment

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Speaker 2: looking at extending producer responsibility, which is a really good

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Speaker 2: way of putting the problem into the hands of the

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Speaker 2: people that created it. If you if you think of

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Speaker 2: people who put the packaging on the market. They're the

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Speaker 2: ones who decide what kinds of packaging they use, are

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Speaker 2: the ones who have the ability to choose types that

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Speaker 2: are readily recyclable if we can. You know, if you

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Speaker 2: look around the world, our extended producer responsibility is where

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Speaker 2: all our countries are going that we like to compare

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Speaker 2: ourselves to. You know, would give us a chance to

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Speaker 2: get something if we get this law in place, give

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Speaker 2: us a chance to put something like and contain a

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Speaker 2: return scheme in place, which would see us with really

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Speaker 2: great outcomes for all the bottles and cans, and then

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Speaker 2: it could also set us up for things like textiles

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Speaker 2: and e waste and other things that we want to

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Speaker 2: see better recycling systems for as well.

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Speaker 1: Do you know, And you'll call me negative, but I

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Speaker 1: just don't think we're that group pliant. I mean, we'll

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Speaker 1: say we would if you ran a pole, you go,

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Speaker 1: oh absolutely, Our love recycling fantastic, can't do it enough.

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Speaker 1: But in reality, if it's inconvenient, we won't do it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that the simple truth? He's where we

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Speaker 1: are where we are.

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Speaker 2: It's not what the evidence shows, Like the surveys that

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Speaker 2: have done in New Zealand show that the majority of people,

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Speaker 2: even though they don't feel one hundred percent confident that

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Speaker 2: there's good outcomes from recycling, they're rarely committed to carrying

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Speaker 2: on and they're really committed to doing the right thing.

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Speaker 2: I think the main problem we have in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: is we don't have good, simple systems for people to

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Speaker 2: be part of. And you know, that's that's that's what

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Speaker 2: the extent of producer responsibility would set us up with,

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Speaker 2: and you know we have you know, the issue in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand really is that we're not committing to putting

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Speaker 2: those systems in place to help people and businesses across

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Speaker 2: the country do the right thing.

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Speaker 1: Well if you look at well, let's hope it changes.

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Speaker 1: So but the council still got a pile of plastic

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Speaker 1: that's going to the tip, haven't they. Suk who's the

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Speaker 1: director of external Affairs at the Zero Waste Network. For

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Speaker 1: more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news

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Speaker 1: talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the

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Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.