Hundreds of Christchurch households lose recycling bins

The recycling report cards for more than 650 Christchurch households could be classed as 'absolute rubbish'.

In the last nine months, Christchurch City Council has been forced to confiscate 664 yellow recycle bins because of contamination, meaning rubbish has to be dumped rather than recycled.

And it has been costly. Council resource recovery manager Ross Trotter told RNZ that if you were one of the households that had their bin taken, you have let things get pretty bad: