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How to Reduce Recycling Contamination at Work | Hygiene Direct

Date: 22-10-2026
Blogs Environmental Sustainability

 

Contamination is what happens when the wrong things end up in a recycling bin. It makes recycling harder to sort, and it can mean material that could have been recycled ends up in landfill instead. The Ministry for the Environment's whole case for standard recycling rules is that clarity about what can be recycled means fewer contaminants and less waste to landfill. The same goes for your workplace: clearer bins, clearer signs, cleaner recycling.

The usual culprits

These items, drawn from the Ministry for the Environment's list of excluded materials, are the ones most likely to turn up where they should not:

  • Soft plastics: bags, wrap and bubble wrap tangle in sorting equipment.
  • Loose lids and caps: too small to sort.
  • Foil and foil trays, and aerosol cans.
  • Drink and milk cartons.
  • Plastics marked 3, 4, 6 or 7.
  • Plastic-lined paper: most disposable coffee cups, and some receipts.
  • Food-soiled items: unrinsed containers and pizza boxes with food still in them.
  • Plant pots, paint containers and hazardous substance containers.
  • The wrong glass: drinking glasses, window glass, crockery and light bulbs are not bottles or jars.
  • Compostable packaging: it does not belong in recycling or in food scraps bins (the Ministry excludes most of it from food scraps collections).

Our guide to what goes in each bin explains each one and what to do with it instead.

Why contamination happens

Most of it is not carelessness. It comes from a few predictable causes:

  • Labels that are unclear, faded or hidden.
  • A recycling bin with no rubbish bin beside it, so people use whichever is nearest.
  • Bins in the wrong place, or in a different order at each station.
  • Visitors and new staff who do not know your rules.
  • Rules that change, so people carry on with old habits.

A simple routine that works

1. Fix the set-up first. Put a rubbish bin beside every recycling bin, keep the layout the same everywhere, and make sure every bin is labelled. Setting up recycling stations in your workplace shows how.

2. Make signs specific. Show the items people actually have in your workplace, with pictures. A sign that names the three most common mistakes does more than a long list. Recycling bin colours in NZ explains how to use colour on your signs.

3. Brief everyone. Spend two minutes on recycling in every induction, and include cleaners, contractors and anyone else who handles the bins.

4. Check regularly. Look inside the bins once a week for the first month, then every month. Note the top two or three contaminants, and fix them at the source with a better sign, a closer bin or a quick reminder.

5. Review when things change. Check again when your contractor changes the rules, when you change suppliers or packaging, and when you move bins.

Make the right choice the easy choice

  • Put a sink or rinse point near the kitchen station, since containers need to be empty and rinsed.
  • Keep spare liners at each station, so bins are always bagged.
  • Choose bins with labels that stay visible. The Sabco EnviroPlastic Deluxe stations, for example, use an always-up lid so the label is always on show.
  • Empty bins before they overflow, because overflowing bins get mixed up.

Keep it clean

Wear gloves when you check or empty bins, and wipe the bins down from time to time with a suitable cleaner. Our guide to commercial sanitising wipes and our hard surface cleaners help.

Browse our recycling bins, signs and accessories and nitrile gloves, or open a trade account with Hygiene Direct for bulk pricing.

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