The State of Soft Plastic Recycling in New Zealand in 2026

New Zealand has had a working soft plastic collection scheme since 2015, making it one of the earlier-adopting markets in the Asia-Pacific region. The Love NZ Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme is a retailer and industry-funded take-back model that has steadily expanded its collection network.

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In 2024, New Zealand launched its first kerbside trial in Nelson. The results were significantly better than expected.

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This article covers what the system looks like today, where it is heading, and what it means for brands selling flexible packaging into the New Zealand market.

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Where Things Stand

A decade of operation, modest scale

The Love NZ Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme launched its first collection bin in Auckland in November 2015. In 2024, the scheme processed 737 tonnes of soft plastic, repurposed primarily into fence posts by Future Post in Blenheim. That is a meaningful operational achievement for a small market, but it represents a fraction of the soft plastic placed on the New Zealand market each year.

Kerbside standardisation excluded soft plastic

From February 2024, New Zealand standardised kerbside recycling across all councils, requiring uniform acceptance of glass, paper and cardboard, aluminium and steel, and plastics 1, 2, and 5. Soft plastic was explicitly excluded. The decision reflects the reality that New Zealand's municipal recycling infrastructure is not yet equipped to sort and process flexible film at kerbside scale.

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How Soft Plastic Is Collected

The Love NZ Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme

The scheme operates through a network of collection bins in participating supermarkets and retail stores, including Woolworths New Zealand, The Warehouse, and Huckleberry. Consumers bring clean, empty, and dry soft plastics to these bins.

• The scheme is funded by member organisations: manufacturers and brand owners using soft plastic packaging pay membership fees that fund collection and processing.
• Membership gives brands the right to use the "Recycle at Store" label on their packaging.
• A 2024 labelling audit of 4,066 units of soft plastic packaging found that 8.8% carried the ARL label and a further 16.8% carried the scheme's "Recycle at Store" logo. The majority of soft plastic packaging on NZ shelves carries neither.

The Nelson kerbside trial

In October 2024, the scheme launched New Zealand's first soft plastic kerbside trial, collecting from 1,000 opted-in households in selected streets in Nelson. The trial is fully funded by industry members and is separate from council kerbside collections. Enviro NZ collects and bales the material, which is delivered to Future Post in Blenheim for processing.

The results have been significant:

• After 20 weeks and 10 collection rounds, the trial collected 3.48 tonnes from just 1,000 households.
• This translates to a per-household capture rate approximately three times higher than the scheme achieves through its retail drop-off network.
• The trial is providing the data needed to assess whether a kerbside model is economically viable and scalable beyond Nelson.

3.48 tonnes from 1,000 households is not large in absolute terms. The participation rate multiplier is what matters. If kerbside collection consistently generates three times the capture per household compared to store drop-off, scaling to a national model would represent a material increase in soft plastic recovery. The economics are still being evaluated.

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What Happens to the Material

Future Post

The scheme is primarily reliant on Future Post in Blenheim as its processing partner. Future Post takes collected soft plastic and manufactures it into fence posts for vineyards and farms, as well as garden beds and other agricultural products. This is an open-loop model: collected soft plastic becomes a durable product but does not return to packaging.

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The scheme's reliance on a single processor creates a concentration risk. Future Post's primary customer base is the wine industry, and that industry has faced flat or declining sales and difficult economic conditions, which has affected demand for Future Post's products and created pressure on the scheme's ability to move material reliably.

The end market challenge

New Zealand's small market size makes it inherently difficult to develop multiple competing end markets for post-consumer soft plastic. At 737 tonnes per year, New Zealand's throughput is not sufficient to support a diversified processing ecosystem.

Options being explored include:

• Additional agricultural film and plastic lumber applications
• Export of clean PE bales to Australian or Asian processors
• Chemical recycling partnerships, including with Australian facilities as that market builds

New Zealand's proximity to Australia is an asset here. As Australian processing capacity expands, NZ has the potential to connect into a larger processing economy rather than being constrained to domestic end markets alone.

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What the Regulations Require

Product stewardship: voluntary moving toward mandatory

New Zealand's packaging product stewardship has operated on a voluntary basis under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. The scheme holds government accreditation as evidence of responsible management.

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Soft plastic is a priority product under New Zealand's product stewardship policy. This means the government can move from encouraging voluntary action to requiring mandatory industry participation. The Plastic Packaging Product Stewardship scheme co-design project is currently underway, and a transition to mandatory participation would require all brands using soft plastic packaging in New Zealand to fund collection and recycling, regardless of whether they choose to join the current scheme.

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Love NZ has applied to the Ministry for the Environment for continued accreditation under this framework.

Kerbside expansion pathway

The 2024 kerbside standardisation established a baseline but excluded soft plastic. New Zealand's Ministry for the Environment has indicated that timebound kerbside trials within the regulatory framework are supported. Nelson is the first of these. If the Nelson data supports expansion, Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch are the logical next candidates.

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Where NZ Soft Plastic Recycling Is Heading

Kerbside expansion based on Nelson data

The Nelson trial's threefold capture rate uplift over store drop-off makes a strong case for piloting kerbside in additional cities. The question the scheme needs to answer is whether the collection economics hold as coverage scales from 1,000 households to tens of thousands. The Nelson data is encouraging; the operational proof at larger scale is still ahead.

Mandatory product stewardship

A transition to mandatory plastic packaging product stewardship would bring all brands using soft plastic packaging into the funding base. This would materially increase revenue available for collection, processing, and consumer education, addressing the structural funding constraint that has limited growth to date.

End market diversification

Reducing dependence on Future Post and the wine industry is a medium-term priority. Clean PE bale exports to Australia, chemical recycling partnerships, and plastic lumber applications beyond agriculture are all being explored. Building even one additional processing route would meaningfully reduce concentration risk.

Trans-Tasman infrastructure connection

As Australia's processing capacity grows, including through facilities capable of handling post-consumer soft plastic, New Zealand's collection system could connect to a larger processing economy. A trans-Tasman approach to materials recovery makes the NZ collection model more viable by removing the constraint of domestic end market capacity.

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New Zealand will not achieve mass soft plastic recycling at kerbside in the near term. But a decade of scheme operation, the Nelson trial data, and the direction toward mandatory product stewardship all point toward a meaningfully improved system by 2028 to 2030. Brands using mono-material PE flexible packaging will benefit from improving infrastructure. Brands using complex laminates will continue to find no domestic recycling pathway in New Zealand for the foreseeable future.

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What This Means for You and Your Brand

1. Join the scheme if you use soft plastic

If your brand uses soft plastic packaging for products sold in New Zealand, joining the Love NZ Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme gives you the right to use the "Recycle at Store" label and funds the collection infrastructure that is currently the only recycling route available. As the scheme moves toward mandatory participation, being a current member simplifies the transition. Waiting until compliance is legally required adds cost and administrative complexity.

2. Ensure your packaging carries the correct label

The 2024 audit found that the majority of soft plastic packaging on New Zealand shelves carries neither the ARL label nor the scheme's "Recycle at Store" logo. If your packaging is recoverable through the scheme, the label should say so. Unlabelled packaging that could be recycled is packaging consumers will put in the bin.

3. Assess mono-material PE for your NZ volumes

The scheme accepts clean, scrunchable mono-material PE structures: bread bags, produce bags, single-material mailers. Multi-layer laminates, metallised structures, and mixed-material pouches are not accepted and have no current recycling pathway in New Zealand. If your flexible packaging passes the "scrunch test" and is mono-material PE, it has a collection route. If it does not, it goes to landfill regardless of what the label says.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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How do I recycle soft plastic in New Zealand?

Collect your clean, empty, and dry soft plastics at home, then drop them into the Love NZ Soft Plastic Recycling bins at participating stores, including Woolworths New Zealand, The Warehouse, and Huckleberry. Only scrunchable soft plastic is accepted. No rigid plastics, no compostable packaging, no food-contaminated material. Soft plastic cannot go in kerbside recycling bins in most New Zealand councils.

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What is the Nelson kerbside trial and what does it show?

The Nelson kerbside trial, launched in October 2024, is New Zealand's first industry-funded kerbside collection trial for soft plastic. Running with 1,000 opted-in households, it collected 3.48 tonnes over 10 collection rounds across 20 weeks: a per-household capture rate approximately three times higher than the scheme achieves through retail store drop-off. This is the key data point the scheme needs to make the case for expanding kerbside collection to other cities.

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My product uses a multi-layer laminate pouch. Is there a recycling route in New Zealand?

Not currently. Multi-layer barrier laminates are not accepted by the Love NZ scheme and cannot be processed by Future Post or any other New Zealand soft plastic processor. These formats go to landfill in New Zealand. The only plausible medium-term pathway is chemical recycling via Australian or Asian facilities, which does not yet exist at accessible scale. Brands with significant New Zealand volumes of complex laminate packaging should be assessing mono-material alternatives.

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Sources and further reading

• Love NZ Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme: recycling.kiwi.nz
• Nelson kerbside trial updates: recycling.kiwi.nz/nelson-trial
• Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme NZ annual accreditation report 2024: packagingforum.org.nz
• Future Post NZ: futurepost.co.nz
• Ministry for the Environment NZ kerbside standardisation: environment.govt.nz
• NZ product stewardship framework: environment.govt.nz

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