Glass forum teams up with Matakana Island community to improve glass recycling

Glass bottles and jars from Matakana Island, a haven of biodiversity with a tiny permanent population in Western Bay of Plenty, have a rather unique journey before they can be recycled. They first need to be transported by barge to reach the mainland before being trucked to Auckland.

The Glass Packaging Forum (GPF) is helping make that journey easier and safer through a grant to trial skip bins for collecting and transporting the glass rather than the old system of fadge bags. The trial is already proving a success, with just over 2.3 tonnes of glass taken from the island for recycling in January.

In 2015 the Matakana Island Marine Club, a charitable trust mandated by the five hapū of Matakana and Rangiwaea Islands, set up a recycling centre to help the community and visitors to the island protect the local environment.

The fact there are no roads onto the island means everything must travel by boat, including the recycling, so collections only happen a couple times a year, says Matakana Island resident Jason Murray.

“This works fine for most of the recycling, but because the glass is heavy and the fadge bags start to perish in the sun, they can split open and spill the glass – which is obviously a safety issue,” Jason says. He is one of 28 volunteers who help maintain the recycling centre.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council Solid Waste Planning and Behaviour Change Lead Ilze Kruis says they have been assisting the club to bring the glass from the island to the Te Maunga Transfer Station, in Mount Maunganui, on a barge. The glass is colour-sorted, making it high quality for recycling, she says.

“The disintegrating fadge bags cause a safety issue when loading and unloading the glass. The transfer station has indicated they won’t accept the glass in the fadge bags anymore,” Ilze says.

The council worked with the recycling centre to come up with a solution which could be trialled and decided on a skip bin system. “Part of a successful trial will be no safety incidents when handling the glass,” Ilze says.

The trial kicked off at the end of December 2024.

“The skip bins are clearly marked to assist and educate users to promote correct glass recycling,” she says.

GPF Scheme Manager Dominic Salmon says it’s great to see small communities that deal with a seasonal influx of returning family and visitors, like that on the island, taking the initiative to be more sustainable.

“The community may not be far from a large city, but they are still fairly isolated. They are doing a great job colour-sorting their glass and getting it sent over to Mount Maunganui so it can go to Auckland to be recycled into new containers,” he says.

“We’re really pleased we were able to award a grant of just over $11,400 to help with the trial.”