WASTEMINZ CONFERENCE 2013
TERRITORIAL AUTHORITY FORUM
Date and time: 21 October 2013 – 1.30-5.15pm
Location: Skellerup and Opus
Present: See attached
Facilitator: Brent Aitken, chair of the TA Forum (Taupō District Council)
Agenda:
PECHA KUCHA PRESENTATIONS
There were three Pecha Kucha Presentations by Kāpiti Coast District Council, Tauranga City Council and Auckland Council, outlining how rubbish and recycling is collected in their regions.
1. Kāpiti Coast:
· They are no longer doing kerbside collections. They are using commercial contractors only and there is no rates funding.
· View their presentation here.
2. Tauranga:
· There is more than one rubbish collection service available: the council plus commercial suppliers.
· The council only provides a basic backup service which is user pays, partly due to the large number of holiday makers who only stay during the summer.
· Tauranga doesn’t provide a kerbside recycling service and this is licensed out to various private companies.
· There is no inorganic collection.
· View their presentation here.
3. Auckland:
· In 2015 there will be a three bin collection: rubbish, recycling and organics.
· Rubbish will be collected fortnightly in bins with a RFID pay per lift system.
· The council will be competing with private waste collectors.
· In November, Auckland Council is introducing a new bylaw to reduce contamination in recycling.
· The inorganic collection will continue but change to an on property booked system. It will be a two-truck model with the first truck collecting recoverable materials and diverting these to resource recovery centers, then a second truck to collect the rubbish that will go to landfill.
· Green waste will only be collected at transfer stations as there is a healthy private market for green waste.
· View their presentation here.
Q and A: Does Tauranga use branded bags? Tauranga uses branded bags and have asked the manufacturers to brand the bags. New Plymouth also uses plastic bags but they are not branded, just stickered, so people often sticker bags that are of a larger size than what they technically are allowed to use.
4. MfE Update - Mike Mendonça
· Key Projects at MfE
o Review of the Resource Management Act with Regional Councils
o How we manage freshwater e.g. improving Rotorua lakes; improving city sewage; improving leachate from landfill
o The importance of health and safety – Introducing Work Safe. The waste industry is not one of the main culprits in terms of health and safety, but it is still an area of concern.
· Long term Projects
o The future of landfills
o Managing product stewardship
· Operational projects
o Non DFO’s’: facilities that do not accept household waste are not disposal facilities and therefore are not being charged the levy. Disposal facility operators- DFOs.
o How the Waste Minimization Fund is used. The Waste Minimization fund will focus on funding fewer smarter projects, which make a difference. There needs to be measurable outcomes. The Ministry is encouraging projects with a strong health and safety focus. The matrix of hierarchy of waste will inform the decisions, but it is not a strict criteria. However, the further you are up the list the more chance you have of getting funded.
o There is a review of the waste levy underway. There will be more opportunities for TA’s to have their say. The big issues are around cover and non-DFOs.
o The Ministry has 9 product stewardships schemes at the moment all are voluntary and not diverting huge amounts of waste. The Ministry is currently giving consideration to tyres, electronic waste, chemicals and refrigerants. Packaging is not currently being considered. The main focus is on schemes for wastes that cause harm to the environment. A question was raised by Kimberley Cleland as to whether any research has been conducted into the environmental impacts of packaging. Mike indicated he would look into this and get back to her. A question was raised as to how far down the track is the Ministry in terms of mandatory product stewardship? Whilst the Ministry cannot provide exact dates, tyres are the farthest advanced. In terms of Ewaste the Ministry will be watching what will happen in Auckland; to see what happens after Auckland is finished with TV TakeBack. Mandatory product stewardship schemes are a political decision not a ministry staff decision so support is needed from TA’s in raising awareness of the issue. A further question was raised on whether there is a move towards CDL container deposit legislation. In Mike’s personal opinion not in the short term, but there is no official government policy statement on this issue.
o At the WasteMINZ Health and Safety sector group meeting that Mike attended whilst there was a strong contractor presence, TA’s seemed to be lacking.
CURRENT ISSUES
Council / Issues / Key IssueAuckland Council / · Procurement for our waste plan
· Developing a resource recovery network. Finding land to establish the centres on is proving an issue.
· Contamination in recycling bins
· Implications of new bylaw on contracts / · Resource recovery parks
· Retrofitting of RFID tags to wheelie bins
Central Hawkes bay / · Glass new extension to landfill aggregates
· Regional approach to waste education strategy
· Providing technical waste assistance to Kiribas islands
Central Otago / · Tender documents for new refuse collection - moving from 240 litre pickups to fortnightly collections
· We can provide information on how to retain community recycling services, such as Central Otago Wastebusters, rather than moving to commercial collections
· We have just closed two landfills so we can also provide information on how to do it
Chatham Island / · Currently we put our rubbish in a hole and burn it, but we plan to open a new landfill next year
· Should we move to user pays or rates payment?
Christchurch / · Reclaiming bins from red zone
· Rerouting routes due to shift in population base
· Identifying and targeting contamination from information coming back from contractors
Clutha District / · We have had a kerbside rubbish and recycling collection (excluding glass) for the past 18 months
· Our landfill consent runs out in 2023 so we need to decide do we ask for an extension or implement a resource recovery park?
· Collecting glass from rural transfer stations is very expensive
Dunedin / · We have adopted the WMP and are using community grant protocols for divvying up waste levy
· The Waste bylaw is under review
· Landfill ownership – some councilors want to sell landfills, however this is a lost opportunity to take control of waste stream
Gisborne / · Expressions of interest for kerbside recycling and resource recovery centre
· User pays in rural areas
· Big reductions in waste disposal
· Education programmes
Hamilton / · We are waiting to see the impact of elections, but we have retained the same mayor
· This year we had a contestable waste fund for the first time. There have been a few teething troubles, but we have learnt some good lessons.
· Licensing of contractors
· Our review of services is still underway. The end date has been extended to April/May
· There is pressure to look at fly tipping and dumping issues
· Effect of ETS going forward / · Community engagement
Hastings / · Drop off centre for recycling is being forced to move, so we will be redesigning our new facility
· Extending our kerbside service into rural areas
· Regional education strategy
Invercargill / · Contamination in recycling bins
· Food waste reduction data gathering / · Contamination in recycling bins
Kapiti / · Biosolid solutions
· Enhancing licensing
· More industry involvement in waste minimisation
· Measurement at the source with view to implementing reduction programmes projects that focus on higher up the waste hierarchy / ·
Manawatu / · New wheelie bin services- there has been a good uptake, but a rise in contamination
· Benefits of building our own transfer station / · Contamination of recycling bins
· Pros and cons of RFID
Marlborough / · Tender process for transfer stations
· Dealing with Grape Marc – waste from wine industry – developing a composting site
· Looking at developing a commercial and industrial sorting facility
New Plymouth / · Tenders for refuse collection contract – could include food waste, separate glass collections
· New resource recovery centre
· We make a fertiliser out of our WWTP sludge, which we have an established market for. However, currently we are starting to exceed capacity in our processing facility, which means we have to landfill excess raw sludge which cannot be processed through the thermal drying facility. / · The new council is under pressure not to increase rates. It is difficult to convince the community around the benefits of a different service offer
Otorohanga / · We have kerbside crates for recycling, so there is not a lot of contamination
· We sort at the kerbside
· Resource consent for closed landfill
Palmerston North / · We asked our rural areas through consultation, but they said they didn’t want recycling
· 26% contamination in recycling bins
· Developing bylaws
Porirua / · Waste education –regional education strategy has been completed and we are awaiting sign off
· E waste: Should the Wellington region be banning e-waste from landfill?
· User pays rubbish bag operation: half the households have wheelie bins from private operators so there is lots of competition; one of the wheelie bin operators has also started selling bags and they are cheaper than council. How do we ensure that the ratepayers get a good service – what bylaws are there out there to ensure this?
· Life cycle cost benefits of diversion – we make decisions based on politics rather than data / · Education
Rotorua Council / · We have a new mayor and CEO
· Tyres are a big problem
Ruapehu / · We are losing population with only 13,000 people in the district, but a big geographic area - 120 kms from North to South
· How do we deal with transfer stations in remote areas?
· Our landfill resource consent runs out in 8 years what will our options be?
Selwyn / · We are tendering for our kerbside collection
· RFID tags - do they work? They are useful from an asset management perspective.
· Growth. We are the fastest growing district in the country with a lot of waste from building development.
· Review of hot rot composting systems: How do we process organics?
· Farm waste: How is it being processed?
South Waikato / · Kerbside recycling – community involvement
Tauranga / · Low standard, low cost disposal facilities
· The draft document of disposal to land is well written
· We have a pilot programme running for food waste, but the main question is what to do with biosolids
· We are selling our consented land fill site as we don’t need it
Taupo / · Longevity of recycling markets for plastics 3-7
· EnviroWaste Services wants to redesign our recycling facility. What is the best practice for design?
· Competition
Timaru / · Organics wheelie bin – commercial waste e.g. from two meat plants
· How do we deal with smaller quantities of specialised organic waste from commercial businesses?
· A regional project on treated timber is being conducted
Upper Hutt / · Developed a regional waste education strategy
· Moved from council rubbish bags rates funded to user pays for kerbside collection. We still manage the system but aren’t financially involved. A 140 litre wheelie bin system is being used plus a glass crate which allows kerbside sorting of glass and is improving the quality of glass collected and health and safety.
· We used to have 6-7 wheelie bin contractors. We have moved from 365,000 rubbish bags down to 40,000 over 5 years so our fixed charges are now spread over fewer and fewer bags. The cost of rubbish bags has had to rise due to movement over to wheelie bins. We will probably move out of rubbish bags altogether.
Waikato District / · Business as usual at the moment
· We are having a service review
· We need to bring in a waste bylaw
Waimakariri / · Consultation to extend collections to rural areas
· Composting and kerbside collection of organic waste
· We are working with Transpacific Industries Group (NZ) on a resource recovery park, which will be a new facility added in an upgrade to our transfer station (which is two years old now). As part of this we are negotiating a more flexible contract with them / · Growth of commercial waste due to new subdivisions
Waipa / · Licensing our contractors
Western Bay of Plenty / · We have invested in a compaction bailer, so we can sell the products themselves e.g. paper and metals
· Fonterra is working with us on their plastic bottles
· Recycling centre in Te Puke area
· Trial of pre paid kerbside recycling in Waihi beach are over Easter – mixed results / · Relicensing contractors
Whangarei / · Cost and commercial drivers: landfill payment of carbon units under Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)
· Increase in levy
· Competition
· The markets for plastics 3-7 - where it is heading?
MFE UPDATE: NEW GUIDELINES ON LEVY SPENDING