Waste Management in New Zealand: A decade of progress

Foreword

Part One: A New Direction

Part Two: Taking Action

Part Three: Making Progress

Annex 1: Chronology of Waste Action: Major Events 1996 - 2005

Performance standards and guidelines

Achieve consistent, high standards of environmental performance for waste treatment and disposal

Background and actions

Landfills

The 1995 National Landfill Census painted a grim picture of landfill management practices in New Zealand, although it recognised that these were generally in transition.

The Resource Management Act required all landfills to have discharge to land consents by October 1994. This was extended by regulation to require all landfill operators to have applied for consent by April 1995. While councils set their own standards through resource consents, the Ministry for the Environment's November 1992 landfill guidelines set best practice and influenced standards. The data from the 1995 National Landfill Census indicated that a substantial proportion of landfills remained un-consented at that time, with some 30% still in the process of being granted consents.

The Ministry for the Environment continued to support improvement in landfill management through the development of a landfill full costing guide, the training of landfill operators and a review of the Waste Analysis Protocol. It also examined the hazards of burning at landfills. In the 1990s, preliminary work was undertaken to investigate national environmental standards (under the Resource Management Act) for tracking hazardous wastes and for controlling the disposal of hazardous wastes to landfills. The Government of the time preferred to bed in gains from the continued implementation of the Resource Management Act, the ongoing promotion and development of best practice guidance, and the growing body of consent decisions by councils to improve the standards of landfill disposal.

The Statement of Government Policy in December 1999, however, gave the Ministry for the Environment and territorial authorities a clear political direction about the minimisation and better management of waste. The Ministry instigated a specific landfill management programme and on occasions has intervened directly to support waste management policy objectives at consent hearings.

The National Landfill Census (1995 and 1998) and the Landfill Review and Audit Survey results (2002) show the number of landfill operations in New Zealand has declined dramatically from over 300 in 1995. Predictions are that there will be less than 45 landfill operations in New Zealand by 2010. Given the likely scale of the operations, good gains can be made if these landfills meet best practice standards.

Part of the Ministry's Landfill Management Programme in recent years has been to develop a number of best practice guidelines and other guidance (in some cases updating earlier work) including:

• a revision to the Landfill Design and Operation Guidelines (2000)
• The Guide to Landfill Consent Conditions (2001)
• The Guide to Closed and Closing Landfills (2001)
• The Guide to Managing Cleanfills (2002)
• The Hazardous Waste Guidelines: Landfill Waste Acceptance Criteria and Landfill Classification (2004)
• The Landfill Full Cost Accounting Guide for New Zealand (2004).

These guidelines are now standard references in the design and ongoing management of New Zealand landfills.

Wastewater

A Community Sewage Survey was undertaken by the Ministry of Health between October 2000 and February 2001. This aimed to establish an up-to-date database of community sewage information for New Zealand (the CoSINZ database). The data includes communities with as few as 100 people and covers both existing and required sewerage systems. It contains information on 269 wastewater treatment plants in New Zealand.

The surveyed plants use a range of processes to treat the sewage, including:

• pre-treatment and primary - application of primarily physical processes (screening, settling or skimming) that removes a significant percentage of the organic and inorganic solids from wastewater
• secondary - application of biological action to remove fine suspended solids, dispersed solids, and dissolved organic solids
• tertiary - application of biological or chemical treatment, or filtration equipment to reduce nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen), organic matter, and residual solids and pathogens. This definition also includes wetlands and overland flow processes.

Many wastewater plants also have a disinfection process that follows either the secondary or tertiary treatment process. Figure 7 below summarises the level of treatment undertaken at each plant. The population served by each treatment category is in brackets and the percentage of plants in each treatment category is provided.

It is believed that on-site disposal of effluent (ie, use of septic tanks) is practiced by between 15% and 20% of the population and this is unlikely to reduce until the densities of population increase in rural areas.

The New Zealand Waste Strategy contains a target to upgrade or close substandard wastewater treatment facilities by 2020. Significant expenditure has been spent over the past 10 years on the upgrade of wastewater treatment plants across the country. Lower Hutt, Kapiti Coast, North Shore, Whangarei, Christchurch, Tauranga, Wellington and Auckland have all upgraded their sewerage treatment systems to tertiary level over the past 10 years. Case Study 8 on the following page highlights the Auckland experience.

The Ministry for the Environment's Sustainable Management Fund has also funded a trial tracking system for liquid and hazardous waste (WasteTRACK), managed by the New Zealand Water and Wastes Association. WasteTRACK is a web-based system which tracks waste from generation to final disposal. Since the trial began in May 2005, 20 million litres of waste has been tracked, and over 720 waste generators have had waste transported. It is anticipated that the trial will lead to further development of a waste-tracking system for liquid and hazardous waste. The expansion of this tool to track hazardous substances is also being considered.

A critical component in the improvement of wastewater management in New Zealand has been the development and adoption of trade waste bylaws. Such bylaws are intended to minimise the risks of trade discharges to the integrity of the collection system and to minimise the contaminant levels in both effluent and biosolids at the treatment plant. The adoption of trade waste bylaws throughout New Zealand has been a success story, and one of leadership by local government. Current figures include:

• three councils have a bylaw based on the 2004 Model Trade Waste Bylaw (NZS9201:23)
• 26 councils have a bylaw, and are planning to update it to be consistent with the Model Trade Waste Bylaw
• 17 councils have a bylaw which is not based on the 2004 Model Trade Waste Bylaw
• 19 councils currently do not have a bylaw but are in the process of developing one
• eight councils do not have a bylaw and are not planning to introduce one.

Gaseous wastes

New Zealand does not have any large-scale facilities dedicated to the incineration of waste. However, incinerators of different sizes are used at various institutions, such as schools and hospitals. The burning of waste at landfills was once common. Until last year, controls on burning were dealt with under the Resource Management Act by regional councils and territorial authorities.

In 2004, however, the Ministry for the Environment developed the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards Relating to Certain Air Pollutants, Dioxins, and Other Toxics) Regulations 2004. These regulations prohibit:

• lighting of fires and burning of waste at landfill
• open air burning of tyres
• burning of bitumen for road maintenance purposes
• open air burning of coated wire
• open air burning of oil
• incinerators at schools and healthcare institutions unless they are consented by 1 October 2006
• new high temperature hazardous waste incinerators.

The regulations also include a requirement for landfills with a design capacity of over one million tonnes to collect and flare, or beneficially use, landfill methane gas. This requirement does not apply to landfills that have less than 5% putrescible or biodegradable matter.

Action to improve air quality through the reduction of emissions has concentrated on airborne particulates that present the most harm to human health, including dioxin and other toxins. Details of the Ministry for the Environment's air quality work programme can be found on our website: www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/air/programme/

Institute comprehensive standards and guidelines covering minimisation, transport, storage and disposal of wastes with hazardous properties

Background and actions

Work on hazardous wastes policy has been underway for several years. It was influenced in part by a recommendation in the 1996 OECD Environmental Performance Review that New Zealand should implement specific legislation for the control, treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes.

The hazardous wastes work programme was developed on the premise that while the large majority of hazardous substances were already controlled by legislation (eg, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, the Health Act 1956, the Radiation Protection Act 1965, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act 1997, the Ozone Layer Protection Act 1996, the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, the Land Transport Act 1998, the Maritime Transport Act 1994 and the Civil Aviation Act 1990), some wastes with hazardous properties would not be subject to these Acts and a further analysis of gaps in appropriate controls was necessary.

Steady progress has been made towards a 'comprehensive and integrated' policy framework for the management of hazardous wastes. Several points can be made about this work:

• Policy covering hazardous wastes is closely linked to policy for hazardous substances. Proposed 'group standards' amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act will strengthen these linkages by allowing the Act to provide controls over some waste products containing hazardous substances.
• The policy framework has been built incrementally making use of existing legislation (including the Resource Management Act and Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act), and utilising a mixture of statutory controls (generally imposed through the resource consent process) and non-statutory policies, such as best practice guidelines to improve the operation of treatment and disposal facilities.
• Generic waste policies (such as full cost pricing of disposal) also apply to hazardous wastes although they may not be a specific element of the hazardous wastes policy framework.
• While most elements of the policy framework are expected to be in place by the target date of December 2005, the policy will continue to be a 'work in progress' with elements being strengthened if experience indicates this is necessary (for instance, guidelines could potentially be strengthened to regulations if there is a case for this).
• Some policy elements still need to be put in place, in particular provisions for a permanent hazardous waste tracking system. As noted above, WasteTRACK is currently being assessed as a tool to achieve this.

Policy framework achievements

The New Zealand Waste Strategy includes a target that a 'comprehensive and integrated' national hazardous waste policy will be in place by December 2005. In 2004, a stocktake was undertaken of the work towards this target and this document provided a broad picture of the evolving policy framework and the status of the work. This stocktake found that many of the elements of a comprehensive framework were already in place or under development. The stocktake also identified gaps (such as the ability to track hazardous wastes) for which work is already underway.

A June 2005 Amendment to the Income Tax Act also created a mechanism to facilitate tax deductions for business expenditure on the remediation of some sites. A key element of the amendment is a provision for business taxpayers to establish site restoration funds. Businesses can choose to divert some of their tax payments into a restoration fund, which will give rise to tax deductions over the operating life of the business. When a taxpayer incurs expenditure to rectify discharges of contaminants, they will be able to apply for a refund from the restoration fund.

The following remediation activities are also now eligible for tax deductions under the amendment:

• expenditure on investigation and testing locations and methods for an activity or improvement that is intended to avoid, remedy or mitigate detrimental effects on the environment from the discharge of contaminants
• expenditure related to monitoring discharges, their effects and monitoring effectiveness of solutions
• capital expenditure including planning and construction of tanks, pipes, impermeable surfaces and machinery, in addition to costs associated with the planting of trees and other vegetation for the purpose of avoiding, remedying or mitigating effects on the environment from the discharge of contaminants.

Contaminated sites achievements

The management of contaminated sites is a specific element of work on hazardous wastes. Compared to many industrialised nations, New Zealand has generally low levels of toxic contaminants in the environment. Land is considered to be contaminated when hazardous substances are present at levels above background levels and likely to pose an immediate or long term risk to human health or the environment. Government policy is to implement remediation or specific management programmes for all high risk contaminated sites by December 2015.

The Ministry for the Environment has taken a lead on addressing historical issues relating to land contamination. This includes:

• financial assistance to investigate and remediate or manage high risk areas through the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund
• expanding existing guidelines
• leading a national collection of unwanted agricultural chemicals
• developing national environmental standards.

The Government has established a Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund to assist regional councils to encourage investigation and remediation of contaminated sites that pose a known or potential risk to human health and the environment within their regions. To date, 23 projects have been funded by government, with contributions also from local government, landowners and industry. Funding has supported the investigation, remediation planning and clean up of contaminated sites.

While the management of contaminated sites is a local government responsibility, 'orphan' contaminated sites are considered a special case. The Ministry for the Environment is directly involved in the management and remediation of several critical sites, most notably the Mapua site where soil contaminated by organochlorines is being treated on-site (See Case Study 11 on page 52).