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Waste minimisation

Waste is a significant pressure on the natural and urban environment and continues to be an issue of public concern. The New Zealand Waste Strategy sets the direction for reducing waste and ensuring that residual waste is disposed of in a safe manner. In 2006, the Ministry reviewed progress against the Strategy’s targets. While significant progress has been made through voluntary efforts, more focussed effort is needed on:

reducing organic waste, which still constitutes 23 per cent of the estimated 3.156 million tonnes of waste sent to landfill every year
reducing construction and demolition waste
ensuring the wider adoption of emerging best practice in waste minimisation across New Zealand
developing and improving alternative uses for material resources
improving the monitoring of New Zealand’s waste streams.

The 2007 OECD Environmental Performance Review of New Zealand found that New Zealand still faces a challenge to decouple waste generation from GDP. The fragmented legislative and institutional framework has stymied efforts to take a cradle-to-grave approach to materials management.

The 2007 Office of the Auditor General’s report on waste management planning by territorial authorities indicated that most had some information about waste composition and quantities, but few identified how much waste was expected in future.

What are we seeking to achieve?

Longer term outcomes

‘Towards zero waste and a sustainable New Zealand’ was the outcome set as government policy when the New Zealand Waste Strategy was adopted in 2002.

Contributing outcomes

Waste generation is minimised.
Minimised risk and damage to the environment from waste generation and disposal.
More efficient use, reuse and recycling of materials.

Reducing waste cannot succeed without a system that manages waste from the point of generation through to disposal. Up to now, waste policies have tended to focus on ‘end of pipe’ solutions by dealing with disposal rather than prevention. The long term challenge is to break the link between the waste we produce and our rate of economic growth by learning how to use resources more efficiently – to produce more with less.

What will we do to achieve this?

To achieve the outcomes for waste minimisation, the Ministry will:

implement, after enactment, the proposed Waste Minimisation Act that will provide tools to measure and minimise waste
work with supply chains of products that become a priority to ensure that relevant parts of the chain take responsibility for effectively minimising waste from the product and manage any environmental harm from waste products
work with key stakeholders to improve diversion from landfill and encourage recycling, especially of construction and demolition and organic waste
develop a long-term monitoring and reporting framework for waste.

Implementation of the proposed waste legislation will ensure that there is sufficient information, national direction and appropriate statutory frameworks. The monitoring and reporting framework and implementation of the Waste Minimisation Act will ensure that further work on waste issues (such as organic and construction and demolition wastes) is based on sound evidence.

The Ministry aims to scope and develop appropriate regulatory and non-regulatory measures for the safe management of priority products through product stewardship schemes, so providing national direction and appropriate statutory frameworks.

Several work programmes contribute to More efficient use, reuse and recycling of materials. Household and commercial recycling initiatives are being expanded to cover more of the country, so New Zealanders and tourists have access to recycling facilities for their unwanted materials.

The Ministry will work with relevant industries to drive greater diversion of organic waste and construction and demolition waste from landfill. Initiatives to separate out plasterboard from construction materials will improve resource efficiency in the building industry and facilitate economically viable markets for the resulting materials.

How will we demonstrate success?

The following table summarises progress towards the longer term outcomes:

Outcomes	Indicators/trends
Waste generation is minimised Reduced waste to landfill	Trend: Total waste to landfill has slightly reduced from 3.180 million tonnes in 1995 to 3.156 million tonnes in 1996.¹⁴
The risk and damage to the environment from waste generation and disposal is minimised	Trend: In 1995 there were 327 landfills in use in New Zealand. Many of these had poor environmental controls. Today there are around 60 landfills in use. Many of these have good environmental controls including engineered liners, leachate collection systems and some recover landfill gas.¹⁴
Increased economic benefit through more efficient use, reuse and recycling of materials	State: 329,283 tonnes of paper, plastic, card, glass, steel and aluminium collected through municipal recycling were diverted from being sent to landfills. When commercial waste is included, the total amount diverted from landfills is estimated to be about 2.4 million tonnes.¹⁴ Trend: In 1996, 20 per cent of New Zealanders had access to kerbside recycling. This increased to 73 per cent in 2006.¹⁴

Outcomes

Indicators/trends

Waste generation is minimised

Reduced waste to landfill

Trend: Total waste to landfill has slightly reduced from 3.180 million tonnes in 1995 to 3.156 million tonnes in 1996.¹⁴

The risk and damage to the environment from waste generation and disposal is minimised

Trend: In 1995 there were 327 landfills in use in New Zealand. Many of these had poor environmental controls. Today there are around 60 landfills in use. Many of these have good environmental controls including engineered liners, leachate collection systems and some recover landfill gas.¹⁴

Increased economic benefit through more efficient use, reuse and recycling of materials

State: 329,283 tonnes of paper, plastic, card, glass, steel and aluminium collected through municipal recycling were diverted from being sent to landfills. When commercial waste is included, the total amount diverted from landfills is estimated to be about 2.4 million tonnes.¹⁴

Trend: In 1996, 20 per cent of New Zealanders had access to kerbside recycling. This increased to 73 per cent in 2006.¹⁴

In April 2007, the Ministry published Targets in the New Zealand Waste Strategy: 2006 Review of Progress. This review found that improvements had been made with respect to the development of waste policy and legislation to support the longer term strategic direction for waste management and minimisation in some areas.

The proposed waste minimisation legislation will address the key indicators of intermediate outcomes as well as determining key targets. Central to this work is gathering data and reporting that will provide a more detailed picture of what is happening in regard to waste in New Zealand.

The Ministry commissioned a cost-benefit analysis report on recycling. This suggests that there is the potential to increase rates of recycling at a positive net balance for nearly all waste streams. The contributing factors to the net benefits vary by material, but where they are included, direct consumer benefits, estimated from a willingness to pay survey undertaken in parallel with the report, are the most significant contributing factor to total benefits.

14 Ministry for the Environment, Environment New Zealand 2007, 2007.

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