To:	Local Government and Environment Committee Bowen House, Parliament Buildings, WELLINGTON
From:	Community Business & Environment Centre (CBEC) PO Box 503 Kaitaia 0441 Phone: 09 408 1092 [email protected]
Date:	1st September 2006
Submission:	To the Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill
Statement:	I wish to speak to this submission at the select committee hearings into the Waste Minimisation Bill. I wish to invite the Select Committee receiving submissions on the Waste Minimisation Bill to visit Kaitaia and experience the economic, social, environmental and employment gains that have been realised by the very Far North community by making a commitment to comprehensive waste recovery over 15 years.

Background on CBEC
Overview of Government Policy and purpose of Waste Minimisation Bill
Part 2: Waste Minimisation Authority
Part 3: Waste Control Authorities
Part 4: Prohibition on disposal of materials
Part 5: Waste disposal levy
Part 6: Extended Producer Responsibility
Container Deposit Legislation (CDL)
Part 8: Public procurement policy

The following outlines in brief the services we provide to our community and CBEC's expertise in waste recovery and waste minimisation.

Community Business & Environment Centre was formed 16 years ago - "To work in our community for jobs and the environment".

To realise the above objectives the organisation established Kaitaia Recycling 15 years ago and approached the Far North District Council (FNDC) for a contract to provide recycling services in Kaitaia as a pilot for the District.

CBEC has been contracting to the FNDC for 15 years to provide a range of waste, waste recovery and waste minimisation education services. Attached are two documents that outline

1. The current structure of CBEC enterprises
2. A brief overview of the history of CBEC enterprises

CBEC has proven that even in the most isolated communities recycling can function economically for council and that recycling can become the primary waste services for council. e.g. CBEC operate Clean Stream Northland (CSN) a company contracted to the FNDC to operate 11 of the districts 20 Refuse Transfer Stations. Currently 73% by volume, 44% by weight that goes through these facilities is recovered. (These percentages excludes green waste, scrap metal and car bodies recovered)

CBEC has a broad understanding of all aspects of waste and the waste recovery industry.

Specific experience range from

• Operating Kaitaia Recycling Centre for 15 years
• Operating the Far North's Refuse Transfer Station network under subcontract and now as the contractor to FNDC for over 8 years
• Providing operational management for the Far North's largest landfill for 7 years


• Providing kerbside recycling collections for 15 years
• Providing kerbside refuse collections for 4 years
• Providing commercial recycling collections for 15 years
• Established the Far North Waste Minimisation Education programmes for the Far North and Whangarei District Councils over 8 years
• Publications on waste reduction under contract to the Ministry for the Environment
  • Kaitaia case study
  • Recyclanomics
  • Slash Trash video - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle manuals
• Joint venture waste recovery contracts and distance management
  1. Clean Stream Waiheke: Contracted to Auckland City Council to provide all on island waste and recycling services
  2. Clean Stream Northland : Joint venture between CBEC & Te Rarawa O Te Rununga to provide the northern waste services to the FNDC
  3. Remarkable Recyclers: Joint venture contract to Queenstown Lakes District Council to provide kerbside recycling and processing services for Wanaka

CBEC feel that our 15 years involvement in recycling in the Far North and our broad range of experience in the recycling and waste recovery industry nationally provides a depth of understanding to our submission to the Waste Minimisation Bill before the Select Committee.

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CBEC support the broad content of the bill.

CBEC has supported the development of New Zealand's current Waste Strategy.

Unfortunately the philosophy of allowing voluntary compliances to this strategy has been abused by the Packaging Industry and some local authorities.

The NZ general public have shown a willingness to support waste reduction initiatives, time after time. Every new recovery initiative has received good public support (consistently 80 - 90% participation with kerbside recycling programmes). The public understand the concept of zero waste (our grandparents practised it).

With the ever growing concern internationally over environmental issues - e.g. global warming, non renewable resource depletion, fresh water limitation, the NZ public want to know they are doing something positive to address these issues, recycling and waste minimisation provides a starting point to address these issues, in every household. The introduction of the bill provide's government an opportunity for a very clear message and the mechanism to archive the government waste strategy.

All political parties need to take responsibility for sending a message to the general public and business that they value the principals of resource conservation and protection of the environment for future generations or publicly state that they don't care.

Achieving high diversion waste recovery is a relatively simple process, Zero waste is the philosophical target but 80 - 90% is possible and the process to achieve this is being modelled by community recovery organisations throughout NZ. Unfortunately waste companies and waste consultants have hijacked the dialogue on waste reduction and have over complication a simple process.

The bill is an opportunity to give a clear message to waste generators that

• NZ is committed to a target of Zero Waste, the NZ public will support this.
• That companies that make no attempt to reduce waste will pay the true cost of generating waste
• Set targets for decreasing waste with definite consequences if targets are not met
• Rules to stop certain materials from being landfilled
• A landfill levy to deter waste generators and fund waste minimisation

New Zealand will benefit economically from taking a stronger line on waste minimisation and waste recovery. The Waste Minimisation Bill will speed up the process of ensuring valuable resources are not buried in costly holes in the ground that create potential long term environmental costs for future generations (USA E.P.A there is no such thing as a safe landfill).

Community organisations have provided viable examples of what is possible in waste reduction by setting up businesses from recycled materials in some of NZ's most isolated communities. WE are looking for leadership at the central government level to present this as a direction for NZ through adopting the Waste Minimisation Bill.

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CBEC supports the establishment of a Waste Minimisation Authority.

However CBEC has concerns over how representatives would be selected for the Authority. The suggested model of ECCA has not been as effective as it could be if it was more representative of the interest groups in the community.

Our suggestion would be that the governing body should be made up of e.g.:

• Elected government representatives = Two
• Ministry for the Environment Staff representative (Staff who commit to two - three year term) = Two
• Packaging Industry reps = Two
• Industry and Manufacturers Reps= Two
• Commission for the Environment Rep = One
• Community Waste Minimisation sector (CRN) = Two
• Private Recycling Operators (RONZ) = Two

Note Reps from the Community and Private Recycling Sectors must come from companies who are primarily recovery companies.

• The Minister would appoint elected government reps and MFE reps. The balance of membership would be elected by the organisations they represent.
• The members of the Authority must represent a balance of rural and urban New Zealand
• Consultants would not be eligible.
• The detail of how the Authority would work should be separated from the Bill and worked through as an individual issue.

The Authority would be expected to report annually to Government and the broader recycling and waste minimisation sector groups e.g.

• Waste Management Institute of NZ (Waste MINZ)
• RONZ
• CRN
• Zero Waste Trust
• Packaging Industry
• Manufacturing Industry
• Retail sector
• Marketing Industry

Measurement of the Authorities performance must form part of reporting back annually.

The key to the success of the proposed Waste Minimisation Authority will be the way it maintains its links with all the interested parties listed above. Historically most governance of government services and government bodies end up being Wellington based and physically and psychologically removed from the activity they are supposed to be representing.

The main consideration in establishing a waste minimisation authority are as follows:

• Representation on the Authority
• Cost to administer the Authority
• Autonomy of the Authority to not be seen as a P.R. arm of Government
• Funds for servicing the Authority and funding delivery does not become another form of ineffective revenue for consultants.
• Distribution of any funds received by the authority from Central Government or any national waste levy. It is seen as critical that the process for allocating funds and the percentage per sector group be negotiated with the representative's of the sector who will receive the funds.

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We do question whether a new authority needs to be established if it is envisaged that generally District LTA's will provide this function. As most councils have structure's in place to administer their waste services e.g. licensing commercial collectors, transport and operator's of transfer stations, disposal facilities, recycling and waste minimisation initiatives. We suggest it would be more valuable to clarify requirements of this structure. It is more important that the Waste Minimisation Authority delivers clear targets and a quality monitoring process that is supportive for LTA developing new waste reduction procedures.

Incentives could also work to get LTA's delivering the WMZ policy e.g. if waste levies are introduced based on each tonne disposed of through residential disposal, then the revenue distributed back to LTA's could be disproportionally high to LTA's who are achieving higher levels of waste recovery.

Rate payers groups would then have something concrete to pressure local politicians over if the District is missing out on revenue.

• A key function of the district delivery of waste minimisation policy would be accurate measurement of all of the districts waste including private operations, illegal dumping and council facilities.
• Establish expected levels of waste recovery of different waste streams as national targets for LTA's.

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A number of materials should be banned from entering landfills. Anything banned from landfill must have an established alternative disposal option. Any ban put in place needs to be accompanied by monitoring process that identifies approx volumes generated of the material in the District which is then measured against recovery of this material e.g. LTA's would be required to have robust collection process in place.

The following are some examples of materials that should be banned from entering landfills

• Paper products, all packaging, commodity plastics, Aluminium and Tin cans, green waste, food scraps, all hazardous waste, rubble, selected building and demolition products.
  The present system of recovering hazardous waste is an example of tokenism that must change under the direction of a waste control authority e.g. In theory many regional and district councils maintain hazardous waste services for their communities. In reality the amount recovered is insignificant to the amount that is generated no one takes responsibility for what still ends up damaging the environment or still ends up in landfills.

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CBEC support the introduction of a waste disposal levy.

We do not support the bulk of this fund being used to develop organisational waste minimisation plans as organisations will gain financially by developing these plans for themselves so should finance plans through their own resources.

We do support programmes to provide seminars to organisations on how to develop waste minimisation plans.

The distribution of the revenue from the levy should be used primarily to

• Extend the level of waste recovery achieved in NZ
• Develop programmes to work with manufactoring and industry to reduce their waste generated
• Support national and regional waste minimisation education programmes
• Work with the marketing industry to develop packaging that is integrated into recovery programmes.

CBEC support the levy being split into a national and regional distribution system as some projects will have national significance.

Funds should be evenly distributed between private, public and community sectors. A process to achieve this should be developed through dialogue with government and the three sectors.

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CBEC support the introduction of legalisation to enforce producer responsibility for all products manufactured for sale. Under the voluntary system operating in NZ we have seen an increase in the volume of waste created and a continuous flow of packaging produced that is made up of multiple non compatible materials making many products no recyclable.

A key to changing this situation would be that the Waste Minimisation Authority initiate direct contact between the industry who produce goods and the recycling industry to support each groups needs in handling packaging.

This group could then advise the packaging industry of changes they require to ensure products and packaging are as recovery user friendly as possible.

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CBEC support the introduction of container deposit legislation for NZ.

The concept is very simple and has been shown to work very well in other countries. C.D.L is another key intervention that sends a clear message to everyone that consumer materials are not waste but are a valuable resource.

NZ fortunately does not have to reinvent the wheel, South Australia has a good example of how simply a container deposit system can work.

The question is not if we should initiate C.D.L but why would you not start something so simple and positive for communities.

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CBEC support the development of government department procurement policies that prioritise the purchase of reusable, recycled and recyclable material.

CBEC suggest that support for LTA's to develop similar procurement policies would be a valuable use of a waste levy fund. This type of government policy sends a clear message to the market if they intend maintaining valuable businesses they need to be moving in this direction.

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