“My lid almost came off, I was so blown away by the results,” says Peter McNamara, Water and Waste Education Officer at Stratford District Council (SDC).
Lids are classed as a contaminant in home recycling bins. In the last half of 2024, SDC ran a competition to encourage local schools and their students and whānau to collect plastic milk and cream bottle lids to help reduce recycling contamination and keep lids out of landfill.
“We had a goal in mind. If the schools together collected 15,000 lids, we’d be stoked. Halfway through, they’d collected over 50,000. So, I thought, these schools are crushing it - let’s think big, like huge. Maybe we could reach 100,000 lids! Turns out they obliterated that goal too,” says Peter.
Before the competition, Stratford district already had some of the cleanest recycling in the country, with only 3-5% of kerbside recycling bins containing contaminants. But, when there were non-recyclables in a bin, around 85% of the time, lids were the culprit. By the end of the contest in December, a staggering 135,694 plastic lids had been collected by participating schools and Stratford’s lid recycling contamination rate had dropped to around 35%.
During the competition prize giving held at the Stratford War Memorial Centre on Tuesday 11 February 2025, District Mayor Neil Volzke presented Marco School with the first-place prize of $1,000 to spend at a local business of their choice, after they collected an average of 974 lids for each whānau that attends their school.
The second-place prize of a $500 Stratford Business Association voucher went to Avon School who saved 502 lids per school family, with Huiakama School coming in third place with 324 lids per family, winning a $250 voucher. At the presentation, Mayor Neil Volzke also made special mention of Stratford Primary School.
“While the competition awarded those who collected the most lids for each school family,” Mayor Volzke says, “Stratford Primary School collected the most lids overall, saving an outstanding 44,716 from landfill and recycling bins.”
“Thank you to every school who took part, for going above and beyond what we thought was possible, and students, their families, and our wider community for getting involved and helping to reduce waste. We had local businesses collecting lids on behalf of schools, residents making drop offs, and people coming as far away as Palmerston North with boxes of lids they’d collected,” says Mayor Volzke.
The success of Stratford’s initiative has led to interest from other council’s wanting to run competitions of their own. Zero Waste Taranaki’s Regional Waste Minimisation Officer Graceyn Cotter says after seeing the incredible success and enthusiasm by the Stratford community, New Plymouth and South Taranaki district councils have jumped onboard with Stratford and will be running a lid collection competition with selected schools across Taranaki later this year.
“Lids left on bottles and containers are the main contaminant in recycling bins in Taranaki. We’re hoping that running the competition across the region will have a long-term positive impact on contamination and reduce the amount of valuable materials ending up in landfill,” says Graceyn.
So, where are the lids heading now? All 135,694 will be taken to Egmont Refuse & Recycling in Hāwera, where they’ll be turned into new products.
Peter says, “These pesky little lids will go from being the scourge of our recycling bins to be shredded, melted, and reformed. Soon, they’ll be all sorts of useful items; from filament for 3D printers to practical items and decorative art.”
