New Zealand's disjointed approach to recycling needs to change if the country wants a chance at improving the planet, says one expert.
Chris McBride, the operations manager of Packit Packaging, told The AM Show there's "a lot of confusion" around what can and can't be recycled - and changing rules across regions don't help.
"There's no unified standard - all the regions do it differently."
He says there are far too many grades of plastic with different regions recycling different grades.
There are seven different grades of plastics - in Wellington, four of these cannot be recycled.
It's a similar story in Auckland - only a select few items can be recycled.
"It's different in Dunedin, it's different in Christchurch - the Government is bringing out we should be having only three types of plastic and Plastic NZ is behind that - so that in turn will hopefully remove a lot of these other plastics."
Even those that can be recycled need to be properly sorted and cleaned - a step Kiwis frequently forego.
"If there's any contamination at all it goes straight to landfill - it needs to be clean," says McBride.
"We're getting a lot of garbage - nappies, firearms, things like that. It's not acceptable and the public needs to take ownership for this."
One of the ways it could be simplified, is to make sure plastics are clearly labelled so consumers know exactly what can and can't go in their bins.
"Then that makes it really easy for the consumer to know what to put in the bin."
