What is the Taranaki Milk Tops Challenge (Te Taki Taupoki Miraka o Taranaki)?
This Challenge encourages households to collect their milk bottle tops so they can be recycled and kept out of landfill. For all of term 3 students and their whānau at participating schools and kura will be asked to separate and collect milk bottle tops at home and bring them into their school. At the end of the challenge, the school that collects the most milk bottle tops per student will win prizes!
Why are tops and lids not accepted in kerbside recycling?
Removing lids from bottles and containers became a requirement for all kerbside collections across Aotearoa in February 2024.
When tops or lids are left on bottles and containers and put in the recycling bin, it contaminates the bin, meaning the whole bottle or container, or even the whole bin can end up in landfill! This is because the people sorting at the recycling centre cannot be sure they are empty and clean, and it is a health and safety risk to open closed bottles and containers not knowing what could be inside! Lids and tops are also often too small to go through the recycling reprocessing equipment and can become stuck, damaging the machines.
What tops are accepted for this Challenge?
Usually, these tops need to go in the red (rubbish) bin, not in your kerbside recycling (yellow) bin. But milk tops are a type of plastic that can be collected and recycled in Taranaki, if you drop them off at The Junction in New Plymouth or the Community Centre in Waitara, who send the tops to Egmont Refuse and Recycling in Hāwera for processing. After that, the tops get sent to Aotearoa NZ Made, where they are made into items like bin liners, plastic tubing etc.
Accepted
- Standard size tops that would be found on a 1, 2, or 3 litre bottle
- All coloured tops from dairy milk and cream bottles, and other bottles like Primo, Mammoth etc
- Boring Oat, Little Island milk and other alternative milk options that come in bottles
Not accepted
- Boxed/Tetra Pak milk tops (e.g. So Good, Vitasoy)
- Juice tops
- Soft drink bottle tops
- Medicine container tops
*please note, all collection boxes from schools will be checked
Why is the challenge not available to all schools?
We have selected schools across particular suburbs to see what kind of impact the challenge has on reducing contamination in recycling bins caused by tops. Following a successful trial in 2025, the Challenge is expanding this year and may continue to be expanded to other areas of Ngāmotu in future.
If you are interested in finding out more, or would like your school or kura to participate in any future Challenge please email: sustainabilityed@npdc.govt.nz
What were the results of the trial carried out in 2025 with 7 schools?
Seven schools from our District were invited to participate in the trial Taranaki Milk Top Challenge – Te Taki Taupoki Miraka o Taranaki, which was a region-wide waste minimisation initiative led by the 3 District Councils.
Together, the schools collected 149,650 grams, which equates to approximately 83,139 individual tops.
Fun Facts
- If we stacked the tops collected on top of each other, they would go 1/3 to the top of Taranaki Mounga
- If we laid the tops side by side next to each other, we would reach between Pukekura Park and Te Rewa Rewa Bridge!
In the Challenge, schools and kura were competing against each other as motivation. In our district, three Waitara schools cleaned up (quite literally) by collecting the most tops per student.
🥇 Waitara Central School – 96 tops per student
🥈 Waitara East School – 80 tops per student
🥉 St Joseph’s School Waitara – 72 tops per student
The Challenge provided a fun, hands-on effort to raise awareness about the importance of recycling correctly to reduce contamination rates and divert what would otherwise be plastic waste ending up in landfill.
The Taranaki Milk Top Challenge is a fantastic example of how collaboration between councils, schools, and communities can lead to positive changes in our practices, that have real environmental outcomes.
If you are interested in finding out more, or would like your school or kura to participate in any future Challenge please email: sustainabilityed@npdc.govt.nz
