Safe disposal of hazardous wastes

The policy objective is to ensure that hazardous wastes are treated and disposed of safely.

The RMA is the key statutory mechanism for controlling the disposal of hazardous wastes and ensuring that wastes are appropriately treated prior to disposal e.g. through consents issued for landfills and treatment plants which place controls on discharges to land, water and air.

The HSNO Act is another important statute. It focuses on hazardous substances rather than hazardous wastes, but the recent Approvals and Enforcement Amendment Act will extend the coverage of the HSNO Act to include many hazardous wastes and some manufactured articles such as batteries.

In addition, the mechanism of ERMA-approved guidelines and codes of practice, supplements the legal elements in the policy framework. Specific regimes and regulations are in place for controlling the disposal of some particular categories of hazardous wastes that are not covered by HSNO. These include radioactive waste, medical and infectious wastes, and funeral wastes.

Elements in place

  • Controls on discharges under the RMA. Resource consents under the RMA are a tool to place controls on contaminants being discharged to land, air and water. All landfills, wastewater treatment plants and major incinerators, for instance, are required to have resource consents. Resource consents are the means through which the landfill waste acceptance criteria and landfill classification in Module 2 of the Hazardous Wastes Guidelines as well as other appropriate controls, may be implemented.
  • The RMA also enables local authorities to control the use of land for the purposes of addressing adverse effects of the disposal of hazardous substances.  
  • National Environmental Standards for air quality. These include bans on the following activities:
    • the burning of tyres in the open
    • the burning of bitumen used in road maintenance
    • the burning of copper wire in the open
    • the burning  of oil in the open
    • the deliberate use of landfill fires
    • the construction of new high temperature hazardous waste incinerators
    • the use of school and healthcare incinerators from 1 October 2006, unless resource consents are obtained.
  • Hazardous Substances (Disposal) Regulations 2001 (available on the NZ Legislation website, in the Regulations database). These regulations set disposal requirements for different classes of hazardous substances. While they do not apply to hazardous wastes they do apply to waste hazardous substances.
  • Module 2 of the Hazardous Waste Guidelines - Landfill Waste Acceptance Criteria and Landfill Classification. Under these guidelines, Class A landfills can accept wastes subject to less stringent criteria than those applicable to Class B landfills. This results in hazardous wastes being accepted at landfills only after treatment or stabilising to standards appropriate to the class of landfill.
  • NZS9201: Part 23, Model Trade Waste Bylaw which was published in November 2004 and has or is being adopted by 49 local authorities, with a further 17 having a bylaw based on an older model bylaw. The model bylaw is a tool that allows councils to control what wastes are discharged by industry to sewer. Wastes which are unsuitable for treatment at the wastewater treatment plant can be restricted and industry is charged to cover the costs of treating the waste they produce.

Elements still under development

  • Group Standards for hazardous waste. The HSNO (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Act 2005, discussed earlier, will provide a group standard mechanism that will enable HSNO controls to be applied to a range of hazardous wastes. Work has started on the application of the group standards mechanism to hazardous wastes. Group standards are a mechanism through which to apply controls to ensure safe disposal.
  • Implementation of the waste tracking system described above will contain information on the disposal/treatment of liquid and hazardous wastes. This is a tool that will allow for waste treatment and disposal sites to be identified and checked for compliance. The tracking system will also provide verification that treatment/disposal has occurred.

Last updated: 17 September 2007