Waste Free New Zealand Policy

Vision

The Green Party has a goal of achieving a Waste Free Aotearoa New Zealand by 2030, with clear and significant progress by 2020, and legislation to facilitate transition towards a Waste Free Aotearoa New Zealand in place as soon as is practicable.

Definitions

"Waste" — 'any material, solid, liquid or gas, that is unwanted and/or unvalued, and is discarded or discharged rather than being reused or recycled.'

Introduction

A waste free society is essential to the well-being of people and the integrity and sustainability of the biosphere. Natural ecosystems are self sustaining and generate no waste. Humans form part of the ecosystem and while we access resources from our environment, we have a responsibility to return only those things that can be absorbed without detriment. Waste is not an inevitable part of production and consumption, as it is viewed in the current economic model.

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.

Policies

1. Government Leadership

The Green Party will

1. Provide government leadership in the transition to a Waste-Free Aotearoa New Zealand through a co-ordinated national approach by:
   1. Establishing an agency whose role it is to;
      1. identify barriers, establish programmes, and adopt and meet intermediate targets that facilitate the transition of Aotearoa New Zealand to a waste-free nation by 2020;
      2. co-ordinate and work with government departments, local government, business and the community sector in moving Aotearoa New Zealand toward waste elimination and innovation in resource recovery;
      3. take responsibility for the implementation and ongoing review of the New Zealand Waste Strategy;
      4. provide legislative support and ensure adequate funding is available to territorial authorities for developing and implementing waste management plans and strategies;
      5. work with local authorities to ensure all waste management plans are well developed, and implemented and audited in a timely manner;
      6. collate and make available to the public accurate information on volume, composition, management and disposal of waste;
      7. co-ordinate an audit of national and local government practices ensuring leadership by example;
      8. work with business and industry towards achieving cleaner production practices;
      9. work with the education sector to implement zero waste policies ;
      10. develop legislation to give effect to the targets and mechanisms necessary to achieve a Waste Free New Zealand.

2. Protecting Natural Resources

The Green Party will

1. Protect the quality and quantity of natural resources and the health of ecosystems from the negative impacts of waste, whilst meeting human needs more effectively and fairly by:
   1. developing a set of natural resource accounts that will be used to monitor the quality and rate of use of resources such as forests, fisheries, clean water and energy reserves;
   2. promoting innovation in waste and water management with increased emphasis on conservation and small scale local solutions;
   3. encouraging energy efficient design and use of local renewable energy in urban areas.

3. Economic Initiatives

The Green Party will:

1. Implement ecological tax reform to shift tax from a focus on income and enterprise, to waste, pollution and natural resource use, including:
   1. An investigation into the best way to tax the flow of materials and energy, including consideration of taxes on packaging, solid waste and energy consumption;
   2. A levy on hazardous substances in proportion to their toxicity and persistence.

4. Industry

The Green Party will:

1. Encourage the design, production and purchase of durable, easily repaired, reusable and recyclable goods by:
   1. setting regulations and standards, and providing financial incentives, to support moving manufacturing processes towards cleaner production and waste minimisation;
   2. setting a timetable for the transition to mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), whereby manufacturers and/or importers take responsibility for the entire life-cycle of the products and packaging they create;
   3. investigating a packaging levy on non-biodegradable and non recyclable packaging;
   4. providing a legislative framework for the creation of mandatory deposit refund schemes;
   5. encouraging social and environmental responsibility in business and the exchange of best practice ideas;
   6. requiring businesses to report publicly on their waste practices as part of a commitment to triple bottom line reporting.

5. Research and Development

The Green Party will:

1. Ensure research and development priorities support the shift to sustainable systems of production and patterns of consumption, moving us toward a Waste Free Aotearoa New Zealand, by:
   1. supporting businesses that take advantage of New Zealand skills to create new goods and services that add maximum value while conserving resources and reducing wastes, through measures such as research and development finance, assistance with capital for start-up and expansion, skills training, funding for the planning process and transitional development costs;
   2. supporting a commitment to ' appropriate technology' that enables us to do more with less for longer;
   3. ensuring all technologies are designed with repairable, reusable and/or recyclable parts and casings;
   4. encouraging investment in new technology that is less-polluting and more energy efficient than that which it is replacing.

6. Import Regulations

The Green Party will:

1. Support the establishment of minimum performance standards for imported manufactured goods, ensuring durability and ease of recycling by:
   1. setting its own quality and efficiency standards for production and consumption;
   2. restricting or banning products and services which do not meet these standards.

7. Employment

The Green Party will:

1. Empower local communities and the business sector to create meaningful work in the transition to a Waste Free Aotearoa/New Zealand by:
   1. supporting the adoption by businesses and local authorities of waste reduction principles and/or programmes such as The Natural Step and Zero Waste target;
   2. improving access to both grant funding and capital for ecologically sustainable small businesses and community enterprises, specifically in the area of waste elimination and resource recovery;
   3. encouraging research into alternative technologies in cleaner production, reuse and recycling, and social research on consumption patterns and attitudes towards waste.

8. Te Tiriti Responsibilities

The Green Party recognises that supporting the exercise of kaitiakitanga is part of honouring Te Tiriti. We will therefore advocate the redress of historical and ongoing breaches of Te Tiriti through the pollution of customary foods, whenua, awa, moana, and waahi tapu. The Green Party will:

1. Ensure Maori are recognised and supported in their role as kaitiaki of their taonga and tikanga by:
   1. ensuring culturally appropriate disposal of sewage;
   2. supporting Maori efforts to protect sites such as customary food gathering areas and waahi tapu from the negative impacts of waste.

9. Hazardous Waste

The Green Party will:

1. Work towards the elimination of hazardous waste by:
   1. banning the importation of hazardous substances which cannot be disposed of safely in New Zealand;
   2. working with and creating incentives for industry to eliminate hazardous waste from production processes in New Zealand;
   3. ensuring that the requirement under the Resource Management Act for local authorities to develop a Trade Waste Bylaw is being fulfilled and effectively enforced;
   4. requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to decline applications for 'new substances', which cannot be disposed of safely in New Zealand;
   5. prohibiting commercial incineration of unsorted domestic or industrial waste;
   6. setting a timetable for the complete phasing out of waste incineration, and requiring all existing incinerators to meet strict emission controls;
   7. setting national regulations banning hazardous waste to landfill;
   8. ensuring contaminated sites are identified, isolated, and remediated.

10. Landfills

The Green Party will:

1. Phase out the use of landfills by:
   1. ensuring that local authority waste management plans set out a clear vision for the phasing out of landfills including:
      1. promoting and implementing the source separation of waste into streams as an essential part of the transition from landfill dependency to resource reduction and renewal;
      2. establishing sorting/recycling/resource recovery centres;
      3. setting landfill acceptance criteria for hazardous waste (until national standards are set);
   2. requiring user charges to reflect the full social & environmental, as well as economic and capital costs of maintaining landfills;
   3. investigating ways that operators of landfills and incinerators can be held responsible for the long term environmental effects of their facilities.

11. Public Education

The Green Party will:

1. Ensure communities have good information and education about waste and renewable resources by:
   1. requiring that local authority waste management plans have a clear reporting requirement for in-house waste volume and management, as well as the composition, management and disposal of waste within their jurisdiction;
   2. ensuring strict labelling standards for all products and establishing a national green labelling scheme for products that are biodegradable, reusable or recyclable;
   3. requiring local authorities to make available to the public a set of strategies for household waste reduction, such as source separation of waste into streams, composting, recycling, and the reduction of energy waste through energy efficiency measures.
   4. ensuring local authorities encourage and facilitate local use of alternative technologies that contribute to the reduction of waste, such as grey water recycling and composting toilets;
   5. requiring local authorities provide high quality information to the public on such alternative technologies.