Palmerston North local government meeting

20 October 2005

National Environmental Standards

Regarding wood burners, there is supposedly no link between RMA and the Building Act.

There are very diverse catchments and 5 different treatment stations. Small communities cannot afford the upgrade of plant treatment. This makes it unaffordable to people to keep a living there.
The upskilling of regional council staff is necessary to manage the National Environmental Standards. The regional council may need to become a ‘broker’ between the different parties (e.g. treatment plant operators, consent holders, district councils etc.)
The legal wording needs to be checked for the final version.
Most procedures and issues for the Drinking Water National Environmental Standards are already done by regional councils.
Greywater systems need to be installed to use water more efficiently.
We need to meter individual water use. In Rangiteiki meters are readily accepted – economy of scale.

‘Overkill’ in regulations hinders people and acceptance. For example, farmers need large-sized culverts. They had old steel storage tanks but these were banned because of contamination. There should be producer responsibilities to collect agrichemicals. We need to focus on people’s health.
How fixed are the contaminated land numbers?
How much money do we invest in indicator substances (e.g. tracking the plume of closed landfill?).
The take-back scheme of containers and bottles should be encouraged but it is tough for small communities to cover collection costs.

It is 15 months until the closure of Palmerston North landfill. More environmental awareness is needed regarding landfills. Higher charges per tonne of waste are encouraging considerations of alternatives.
There is a lot of green waste to landfill in Palmerston North. $2 is so cheap that it does not encourage the consideration of alternatives.

There is a strong drive for a resource recovery plant in Palmerston North.
Palmerston North City Council is interested in the funding possibilities (as it has just finished lengthy public consultation process).
Horowhenua is now moving towards commercial construction waste resource recovery. This is currently occurring on a small scale basis at the Levin transfer station.
Palmerston North has a pilot plant producing compost from supermarket and restaurant waste which they are selling to Mitre 10.
The smell and viability of re-using organic waste has been questioned. Viability is an issue because there is a belief that the supply market for compost is saturated. Composting needs an end user market for viability.
The use of weed mats has increased so reducing the demand for compost.
Up front disposal costs are not really used in New Zealand. Is it the importer’s responsibility?
The group agreed that they all wanted support for innovation and implementation of collection and recycling schemes.
There should be mechanisms for facilitating recovery (i.e. container deposits).

There is good publicity on AgChem collections but some council’s are not set up to deal with AgChem waste outside of one off collections. There are no budgets for this. AgChem collections require funding. There are private collectors. It was suggested that there could be an MFE organise AgChem collection scheme which is funded and run on a rotational basis around regions.
MFE should provide advice on the handling, storage, transport and disposal of agricultural chemicals.

Fly-tipping is a big problem. Palmerston North has reduced the number of rubbish bags allowance by half. The areas used are the river beds or the first road out of the district boundary. It is easy to identify who rubbish belonged to but not so easy to identify who dumped it. It has been suggested that the size of weekly rubbish bags should be reduced by half rather than the number (i.e. Auckland).
Vehicle dumping is not really an issue here as Manawatu District Council provides a $20 voucher to take unwanted cars to a central dumping point.

Last updated: 17 September 2007