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Christmas 09 Newsletter

Sophie’s Soapbox

Great news for anyone working in tourism in our area. A new recycling scheme has just been launched in Otago, which will make it easy for tourists to recycle while they’re here. Wanaka Wastebusters has rolled out On The Road Recycling across Otago in partnership with recycling centres, i-SITE New Zealand and the Otago Regional Council.

Here’s how On The Road Recycling works; A tourist visits an Otago i-SITE and picks up a free map showing all the recycling centres in Otago.

  • They can also buy an On The Road recycling bag which costs $2.50.
  • The visitors wash and squash their recycling on the go: glass, cans, plastics number 1-6, cardboard and paper.
  • When the bag is full, they use the map to locate the nearest recycling centre, and drop their bag of recycling off.
    • How easy is that! As a bonus, most of the recycling centres have great second-hand stores.

    On The Road Recycling is based on a successful prototype in Northland. Like us, Northland is a relatively unpopulated region which is very popular with tourists and known for its unspoilt scenery and commitment to sustainability. The beauty of this scheme is that it sets up an easy way for money to filter back to the recycling centres which deal with the recycling.

    As the Otago organiser for On The Road, I like to think we’ve got the head and the tail covered, now we just need to extend the scheme through the middle of the country. There has been some bad press overseas recently questioning whether New Zealand’s clean green reputation is a mirage. In my view, recycling is one of the baselines of ‘clean and green’.

    Most tourists arrive with good intentions but many find it hard to find recycling services and end up throwing all their recycling in the rubbish bin. That leaves them with a tarnished view of our country’s environmental efforts. New Zealand needs to live up to our 100% pure marketing, or it becomes a joke. On The Road recycling is one important step towards safeguarding our country’s valuable reputation for caring for our environment.

     

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