There are 98 composting facilities across New Zealand. These plants usually collect organic waste from businesses that deal with food or beverages and can often take yard waste from nurseries or landscaping companies. What a 2017 survey found out was that amongst the 27 composting facilities included, many of them were having trouble dealing with processing food packaging. Some of the issues included confusion with oil-based polyethylene coated cups and other conventional plastics, length of processing time, the need for items to be shredded finely and the issue of some brands packaging not breaking down. This has led to them needing to adapt their processes while some have simply stopped processing this waste. There are currently 10 commercial composting facilities accepting compostable packaging and food service ware.
New Zealand's Infrastructure
One of the main issues facing New Zealand is not the availability of alternative sustainable packaging products, but the means and capabilities to process them at the end of their lifecycle. Without the correct infrastructure and facilities to process these types of packaging, they end up sitting in a landfill waiting to decompose.
Although these items may be compostable or bio-degradable, they are no better for the environment sitting in a landfill since they won't break down because of incorrect conditions required to do so including temperature, humidity and sunlight levels.