Recycling infrastructure is getting a $36.7 million investment from the government.

This includes a waste plastic baler being installed in Te Puke, as well as Northland and Canterbury.

In total, seven high-tech recycling plants from Northland to Canterbury will be upgraded.

The announcement is part of a wider plan to reduce the amount of rubbish ending up in New Zealand's landfills, says Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage.

She welcomes recommendations in a report on how New Zealand's kerbside recycling can be standardised. The report, Standardising kerbside collections in Aotearoa, has been released today.

'An immediate first step the sector and councils can do is move towards collecting a standard group of materials. There also needs to be a collaborative approach between central and local government, while recognising that councils have their local contexts and existing services to manage.

'This $36.7 million investment and implementing the kerbside report recommendations will help improve recycling infrastructure and materials recovery,” says Sage.

'Currently New Zealand's recycling system relies on a lot of manual sorting of materials so that they can be reprocessed. It's not pleasant work, especially when people put rubbish in their recycling bin.

'Investing in high-tech optical sorters will make for safer workplaces and speed up the sorting process to separate different materials, such as paper and plastics.

'This investment sits alongside other government initiatives to reduce waste going to landfills such as the expanded and increased waste levy, and designing a container return scheme for beverage containers.

'New Zealanders care deeply about recycling and doing the right thing for the environment. While we continue to tackle Covid-19 we are also focused on a recovery that creates a win-win for our people, the economy and environment.

'This $36.7 million is part of the $124 million the government previously announced it is investing from the Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund in a number of significant waste infrastructure initiatives across the country.”

Today's announcements are to upgrade material recovery facilities at the following sites throughout New Zealand:

• Plasback collection facilities in Northland, Bay of Plenty and Canterbury

- Three waste plastic balers and processing equipment will be installed, with agreement in principle for up to $442,000 in a grant co-funding.

• EcoCentral's Christchurch facility

- Agreement in principle for up to $1.8 million grant funding for a plastics optical sorter.

- Agreement in principle for up to $15 million grant funding for a fibre optical and mechanical sorter.

• Auckland Council's Auckland Materials Recovery Facility

- Agreement in principle for up to $0.6 million grant funding for a plastics optical sorter.

- Agreement in principle for up to $16 million grant funding for a fibre optical and mechanical sorter.

• EnviroWaste Services Limited's existing New Plymouth facility and a new Hamilton facility

- Two optical (fibre and plastics) sorter units in each of these Materials Recovery Facilities, with agreement in principle for up to $1.9 million grant co-funding for the four units.

• Smart Environmental's facilities at Thames and new Napier facility

- A plastics optical sorter unit in each of these Materials Recovery Facilities, with agreement in principle for up to $1 million grant co-funding.