So how much rubbish does the average kiwi household produce each year?

If your household puts out one bag of rubbish per week you probably:

throw away enough kitchen scraps and garden waste in a year to make over 7 bags of compost
throw away enough paper and cardboard in a year to make a stack of magazines 8 metres high
throw away enough recyclable plastic in a year to fill at least 5 wheelbarrows.

That leaves around 20 bags of rubbish that can't currently be recycled which means you could be putting out less than one bag per fortnight.

Every year we put 3 million tonnes of rubbish into landfills

If your household puts out three bags of rubbish per week you probably:

throw away enough kitchen scraps and garden waste in a year to make almost 30 bags of compost
throw away enough paper and cardboard in a year to make a stack of magazines over 20 metres high
throw away enough recyclable plastic in a year to fill a large woolsack.

That leaves around 40 bags of rubbish that can't currently be recycled which means you could be putting out less than one bag per week.


		Putting your kitchen scraps down the waste disposal unit doesn't make them go away - all you're doing is shifting the disposal problem to someone else. Compost your scraps instead.

If your household fills one large wheelie bin per week (equivalent to 5 bags of rubbish) you probably:

throw away enough kitchen scraps and garden waste in a year to make almost one and a half trailer loads of compost
throw away enough paper and cardboard in a year to make a stack of magazines 40 metres high
throw away enough recyclable plastic in a year to fill at least 25 wheelbarrows.

That leaves around 20 wheelie bins of rubbish that can't currently be recycled which means you could be filling less than one wheelie bin per fortnight.

Note that these calculations are based on averages and do not necessarily reflect the amount or mix of rubbish you actually produce.

NEXT: What's being done about it?