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The Green Party has a goal of achieving a Waste Free Aotearoa New Zealand by 2020, with clear and significant progress by 2010, through specific Waste Minimisation legislation.

What the Bill sets in place

1. A Waste Minimisation Authority

The Bill establishes a centralised agency, similar in purpose to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, dedicated to facilitating the move to a less wasteful society. This would have a coordinating educational and facilitation role as well as being tasked with providing advice to the Minister. It would be responsible for setting and monitoring targets for the reduction in the amount of waste disposed of in landfills, cleanfills and incinerators, approving and monitoring extended producer responsibility programmes and administering the landfill levy which form key components of the Bill.

2. Waste Control Authorities

The Bill also more clearly specifies the roles of territorial authorities, giving them more power with respect to waste minimisation and management. These would constitute, either individually or jointly with other territorial authorities, Waste Control Authorities. The Waste Control Authorities would adopt and implement waste minimisation and management plans and be responsible for ensuring that all parts of society, including the waste minimisation and disposal sectors, implement measures that will result in greatly decreased waste disposal coupled with increased resource recovery. The Waste Control Authorities would have a major role in facilitating the move to a less wasteful society at the local level but are also empowered to enforce requirements of this Bill through bylaw making and licensing provisions.

3. Bans of materials to landfill

Phased in bans will be introduced on the disposal of those materials for which there currently exists recovery systems, diverting them from waste disposal facilities and using them more productively. Provision is made for the subsequent addition of more materials.

4. Landfill levy

The Bill creates a levy on every tonne of waste which is sent for disposal. This is intended to send economic signals deterring wasteful behaviour and to provide funding for the implementation of waste minimisation initiatives.

5. Extended Producer Responsibility

The Bill provides for extended producer responsibility programmes to be required for certain products. These require the producer of the product to take responsibility for the product throughout its lifecycle, from design through to the products' end-of-life.

6. Organisational Waste Minimisation plans

All organisations will adopt and implement Waste Minimisation plans to facilitate a decrease in the amount of waste they produce. This requirement is phased in over a 10 year period, starting with the largest organisations and ending with the smallest.

7. Public procurement policies

All public organisations will implement green procurement policies which give priority to purchasing products and services which either decrease the generation of waste or support markets for recycled materials. Furthermore, public organisations will report on their resource use, waste generation and what happens to the waste they produce each year.

Comment

While the Waste Minimisation Bill seeks to discourage landfilling, and encourage recycling and producer responsibility, the underlying rationale behind the legislation is reduction of waste at source. As important as recycling and resource recovery are, they are unlikely to restore more than a modest portion of the damage done during production. Improving product durability and minimising waste in production, packaging, and transport are the only strategies for tackling resource depletion, environmental degradation, and climate change, and reducing the number of hours we work in order to reclaim the quality of our lives.
Key Principles

• Full social and environmental costs should be taken into account when making decisions about the creation, management and disposal of waste.
  
• Production and consumption must reflect a cyclical approach, as is seen in natural ecosystems, in order to reduce the rate at which we use energy and resources.
  
• Manufactured products should be durable, with components that can be reused or recycled, and should be easy to repair, upgrade or modify.
  
• People need both accurate information and empowering education to participate effectively in creating a Waste Free Aotearoa New Zealand.
  
• Greater use of appropriate technologies and ongoing innovation are necessary to move from a wasteful society to a creative sustainable society that does more with less for longer.
  
• Tangata Whenua must be supported both in their role as kaitiaki and in protecting their taonga and tikanga against the negative impact of waste.
  Government, citizens and business must work together and show individual leadership and responsibility in implementing the waste reduction hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recycle.
  

For further information on the Green Party's Waste Free Campaign contact:

Nandor Tanczos MP (04) 470 6712 nandor [dot] tanczos [at] parliament [dot] govt [dot] nz
Chris Teo-Sherrell (04) 470 6767 chris [dot] teo-sherrell [at] parliament [dot] govt [dot] nz
www.greens.org.nz/campaigns/waste