Wellington's plastic waste could soon be reborn as park benches in Melbourne.

While Wellington City Council continues to scratch its head on recycling plastic bags from household waste, The Packaging Forum – an industry lobby group – is setting up recycling stations across the region for all soft plastics.

The stations will be set up at 50 New World, Pak'n Save, Countdown and The Warehouse stores across Wellington city, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua on October 19.

MAARTEN HOLL/ STUFF Wellington city councillor Iona Pannett urges consumers to reduce their use of plastic bags, saying a good recycling solution is still far away.

Anything you can scrunch up in your hand can go in the bins, Lyn Mayes, manager at The Packaging Forum said. That's anything from bread bags, biscuit wrappers and food wrap, to confectionary wrappers and sanitary packaging.

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The forum is driving the scheme, with investment from the Government and industry players.

MAARTEN HOLL/FAIRFAX NZ Lexi Taylor, left, and Hilary Unwin, from the Aro Valley Community Council, during Plastic Free July, when businesses and residents pledged to stop offering and using plastic bags for a month.

"We haven't seen in New Zealand a plant that can take every type of plastic, and we know in Australia they can take all that and convert it into bollards and park benches and traffic cones," Mayes said.

So until such a plant arrives in New Zealand, the waste will go to Melbourne. The resulting products will then be sold back to New Zealand.

The programme is already running in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch after being launched in November 2015.

STUFF Plastic bags were stockpiled by Wellington City Council after it realised it didn't have the capacity to recycle them.

Since then, more than 45 tonnes of soft plastic packaging has been collected – or an estimated 10 million units of packaging.

The forum's intervention comes after it was revealed that no plastic shopping bags have been recycled in Wellington since 2011, despite the city council letting residents think otherwise.

The council issued an apology earlier this year for misleading the public, and vowed to do a thorough review of the instructions it sends out about recycling.

It and its recycling contractors had "yet to find a sustainable [recycling] solution to plastic bags", waste operations manager Adrian Mitchell said. He recommended using reusable shopping bags instead.

Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said: "Single-use plastic bags are mostly an issue for marine environment, which is technically beyond our boundaries. It's still been our practice to advocate for levies, fees or bans."

Plastic bags are a bit of a soapbox issue for councillor Iona Pannett,​ who criticised The Packaging Forum for its approach to waste.

"The Packaging Forum haven't exactly been progressive on trying to reduce the amount of packaging. Consumers often want to do the right thing, but they can't because the stuff they're buying has lots of packaging around it."

Mayes admitted some thing were over-packaged, "but generally speaking if you are talking about food, a lot of effort to reduce waste".

Pannett said the council was investigating a machine that would turn plastic bags into an oil.

"You need to convert it into an energy source. And I'm like, well, fine but the important thing is to stop using them in the first place.

"Recycling is quite a way down the chain, so the best thing to do is to reduce. That's the major thing, to stop using them wherever possible."​

Wellington City Council is one of the majority of councils that voted in support of a recommended compulsory levy on plastic bags last year.

But the council doesn't have the authority to impose a levy. That has to come from central government.

SMALL INITIATIVES

Meanwhile, some businesses and residents are launching their own initiatives to try to reduce consumption.

Karori New World is one of several stores that gives customers money back for recycling – five cents off for each bag they bring in themselves, and fill.

Store owner Andrew Summerville estimated his store went through 15,000 fewer plastic bags in May alone due to the incentive.

Aro Valley Community Council (AVCC) held Plastic Free July this year, which saw both businesses and residents pledge to stop offering and using plastic bags for a month.

In future years they want to go a step further and limit plastic wrap or single use coffee cups.

"We keep thinking, where else can we go?" Lexi Taylor of the AVCC said.​