Use our interactive tool on our home page to find out what you can and can’t put in your bins.
The green means that you’re doing a great job – keep going!
Orange means we found one or two unaccepted items in your bin, but the bin will still be collected.
We’ll give you a red sticker if we find more than two unaccepted items or one substantial / dangerous item in your bin and your bin will not be collected. After a second red sticker, you are on a final warning; if unaccepted items are found in you bin again within 3 months, your recycling bin will be removed.
The orange and red stickers will show you which unaccepted items we found – this could include food or the wrong types of plastic.
Please remove the unaccepted items, then remove the red sticker and put your bin back out on your next collection day.
Your bin may be rechecked by our team of bin ambassadors - if both the unaccepted items and sticker have been removed, your bin will get collected.
Please store your recycling until the next collection. We will not return to empty your bin if contamination is removed the same day you received the sticker. If you want to dispose of your glass and cardboard recycling before your next collection, you can take it to Waste Management's Seaview Transfer Station.
If there are new owners or the tenancy changes, you can request for the bins to be delivered and the service to be reinstated. Please email waste@huttcity.govt.nz
If your recycling bin gets removed due to repeated contamination, you have a few options:
- You can put all rubbish and recycling into your red-lid rubbish bin. This will all go to landfill.
- You can appeal this decision by contacting waste@huttcity.govt.nz. All bin removals are judged on a case-by-case basis.
- After six months, you can apply to have your bin reinstated by contacting waste@huttcity.govt.nz
Contamination is due to things like used nappies, green waste and general rubbish, e.g. appliances and food waste.
No, they are made from soft plastic and should go into your red (rubbish) bin. We trialled recyclable paper tags, but stickers have found to be the best option as they don’t blow away in the wind. In this case, making sure the information reaches the bin user is more important than having a recyclable paper tag.
The cost of carrying out bin inspections is very low compared to the extra labour cost involved in removing contaminated recycling by hand, which if above a certain threshold, is passed on to ratepayers.
The stickers will be placed on the bin themselves, rather than delivered to households, so in this case we don’t need to identify individual households.
You can take cardboard and glass to Waste Management’s Seaview Transfer Station free-of-charge. You can also upsize your recycling bin to a 240L or obtain a second blue crate if you find that your current recycling bin is repeatedly too small.
Let us know via our bin enquiry form.
The community recycling stations were closed as part of the roll-out of the new kerbside service in 2021. This decision was made because the collected material was often highly contaminated, and rubbish was frequently dumped around the stations. See below photos.
Please email any further questions about this process to: waste@huttcity.govt.nz or call 04 570 6666.
If you have received 2 red stickers and unaccepted items are found again within 3 months of your first red sticker, your bin will be removed.
Both the first and second red sticker will warn you that repeated contamination can result in the removal of your recycling bin.
After a second red sticker a letter will also be sent to the resident and ratepayer for that property.