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Other government initiatives with climate change benefits - Waste

The government is implementing a broad range of waste policies, particularly those driven by targets in the New Zealand Waste Strategy.  These include the following:

  • The Waste Minimisation Act 2008­ encourages a reduction in the amount of waste we generate and dispose of in New Zealand and aims to lessen the environmental harm of waste. This Act also aims to benefit our economy by encouraging better use of materials throughout the product life cycle, promoting domestic reprocessing of recovered materials and providing more employment.
  • National Environmental Standard for Landfill Gas – requires landfill sites with a design capacity greater than 1 million tonnes of refuse to collect and destroy methane emissions. The regulation sets standards for the flaring of the gas, but also allows for destruction of collected gas via beneficial uses of methane such as electricity generation.
  • Simply Sustainable – an eco-efficiency tool-kit for business that helps reduce their emissions by promoting energy efficiency and best practice in waste management.

Last updated: 14 October 2009