Every election hoarding in the country has to be down by midnight on the Friday before election day. That is tens of thousands of coreflute panels off the fences in one night, and most of them have nowhere to go.
Both numbers are estimates. The maths is in the FAQ.
Coreflute is waterproof and it cuts with a box-cutter. Paul Elkins built this boat out of a single sheet.
What are campaign signs made of?
Coreflute, also spelled corflute. It's twin-wall polypropylene, sold as Coroplast in the US and Correx in the UK. In New Zealand the sign itself is usually called a hoarding.
What size is a campaign sign?
Usually 600 × 900mm on a wire H-frame stake. Smaller ones are 450 × 600mm, and roadside boards go up to 900 × 1200mm.
How did you get to those numbers?
It's an estimate. About 40,000 hoardings across 71 electorates, 64 general and 7 Māori, at 400g a sign, gets to 15 tonnes. The real number moves a lot by electorate.
When can hoardings go up, and when do they come down?
Nine weeks before election day, and down by midnight on the Friday before it. In that window the Electoral Act allows signs up to 3 square metres, which overrides council size limits. Where they go and how many you get is still the council's call. Auckland runs its under the Signs Bylaw 2022, Wellington City Council has its own hoarding guidelines.
Can you put an old hoarding in kerbside recycling?
No. Council kerbside collections here only take plastics 1, 2 and 5. Coreflute needs a specialist recycler, or someone who wants it.
What happens to hoardings after an election?
They come off the fences in one night. A lot get stacked in a garage after that, because binning them feels wasteful and nobody has asked for them.