Reduce, Reuse Recycle...... Our Recycling Plant visit

Last Thursday 5th March we visited the Waitakere Recycling Plant in Henderson.

We were amazed at how much rubbish our city creates in 1 day.

There was a classroom on site that had lots of sculptures outside which had been made out of "rubbish" people had thrown out.

One of these sculptures was connected to an old bike which you could sit on and pedal.  When you pedalled the bike, it pushed water through a pump, down a maze of "rubbish" bits, which you could collect in buckets and water the garden with.

We saw a huge cow made out of broken large green bins and an elephant made out of metal barrels and pipes.

It really made us all think about how much we throw away on rubbish day.

Plastic bottles are sorted and recycled, bundled into large piles and shipped overseas, where they are recycled and can be used to make polar fleece material.

The really cool thing about our recycling plant is that you can go and pick up free paint on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 1pm and 3pm.  There is also a pile of free wood, dumped from buildings sites and an actual outdoor shop, which sells items saved from the huge rubbish piles.

We took lots of photos, so please look through these and enjoy.

Food for thought.

Green waste being piled into large bins.  This is taken out to a plant in South Auckland where is is turned into The Living Earth compost.  

This rubbish pile is added to and removed every day from 5am.  It can reach the top of the roof and be spilling out every open door.