Recycling arrives with style on South Island forecourts

3rd July 2013

Recycling arrives with style on South Island forecourts thanks to BP, Coca-Cola and Love NZ

BP and Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand have joined forces with the Love NZ brand to bring forecourt recycling to the South Island and today Dave Cull Mayor of Dunedin launched the programme at Dunedin’s BP Connect Southern. The bintainers have been installed at BP Connect stores in Dunedin, Timaru, Queenstown and Christchurch.

Bintainers have already been installed at over 30 BP forecourts across the Auckland region and over the next 12 months further bins will be installed across all 81 BP Connect forecourts throughout New Zealand. In the first full month of recycling at 31 Auckland stores – 12,576kgs of recyclable material was collected and at this rate it is expected the 81 recycling Bintainers will together collect enough cans, bottles and cups in one year to stretch well beyond the length of New Zealand when stacked end to end* and weigh the equivalent of 3752 All Blacks.**

Love NZ, a partnership between local and central government and industry to increase public place recycling, said the investment by BP and Coca-Cola had the potential to greatly reduce waste to landfill. This project is part of a commercial programme which has received contributory funding from the Waste Minimisation Fund.

Nicky Wagner, Chair of the Love NZ Board said: “Most Kiwis are good recyclers at home. 86%1 of us have access to kerbside recycling and we’re pretty good at using that. But only 18% of waste material collected out and about is recycled. These new recycling ‘bintainers’ on BP Connect forecourts make it easy for people to recycle their containers and packaging while out and about.

“The BP, Coca-Cola partnership is a very visible illustration of Love NZ’s commercial initiative to partner with major brands to install and promote more out and about recycling bins. Over the past three years we have more than doubled the number of Love NZ public place recycling bins and introduced over 2000 mobile event recycling bins but we need more so that recycling bins are as available as waste bins. The Love NZ project is the smart way to do things – bringing industry together with councils which will help reduce the overall costs of recycling through economies of scale and building consistency around the country,” she said.

BP’s Retail Managing Director Frank van Hattum, said industry has an important role to play in helping promote recycling and sustainability practices.

“This is something that can make a real difference. In the first month alone across 31 Auckland sites over 13,000 cans, cups and bottles were collected. We know it’s important for our customers and communities and believe in leading by example; we are committed to having a Bintainer on all 81 BP Connect forecourts over the next 12 months.”

Barry O’Connell, Managing Director of Coca-Cola Amatil NZ said: “We’ve been involved in recycling for many years and we’ve invested in establishing a significant number of programmes to encourage and promote effective out and about recycling.”

The project is also liaising with suppliers, recyclers and councils in each region with the goal of setting up effective paper cup recycling where it makes economic and environmental sense to do so.

* In May on average each bin in Auckland collected 406kg of recyclable material equivalent to 15,000 bottles and cans a month. At that rate 81 bins would collect each year 394 tonnes of recyclable material.

** Based on the average weight of an All Black 105kg

ENDS

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