HAVE YOUR SAY ON WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO WAIHEKE'S RUBBISH !


Auckland Council is asking for public submissions on their draft plan for minimising waste throughout Auckland. For a copy of the full plan click here or you can pick one up from the Waiheke Resources Trust Centre. A summary of the plan and submission form is also available here or from the Resources Centre.


Below are our answers to the questions in the form. Feel free to use all or some of them in your submission and include your own ideas and examples of practices you especially do or don’t like.

You can use these answers by:

You are allowed to attach additional pages to your submission form if you have more to say.

The deadline for submissions is 4pm on the 31st of January 2012.

If you would like to find out more about sustainable waste management suitable for an island community visit the WRT resource centre. Or come to our Sustainability Festival market on Sunday 22nd January at Artworks where you can work with other waste busters on your submission!


Question1: 

Auckland Council has a legislative obligation to 'promote waste management and minimisation in its district', under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. The proposed short-medium-term target aims for a 30 per cent reduction in the amount of domestic kerbside waste sent to landfill, per person, by 2018. Do you agree or disagree with this target and why? (See Part A, section 2.2 for more information).

Agree.

This is a realistic target over the whole Auckland City. However in the Hauraki Gulf we have shown we can do much better through community responses and innovations. 


Question 2: 

Currently around 45 per cent of Auckland households pay for kerbside refuse collections through disposer-pays and 55 per cent through rates. To ensure that householders only pay for the refuse they put out and encourage a reduction in waste, Auckland Council is suggesting standardising the way households pay for refuse by introducing disposer-pays for domestic refuse collections across the whole region. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal and why? (See Part C, section 2.1 for more information).

Agree

Disposer pays offers the fairest way forward. Economic incentives do create behaviour change.

Solutions to reduce waste in the first place, as well as opportunities to reuse and recycle must be significantly increased.

I/We oppose giving households the choice of receptacles up to 240 litres, as this encourages the idea that waste is OK, as long as you pay. Low income households will bear the burden of reducing their waste, while those who can afford to be less responsible can continue to do so.

The issue of commercial waste also needs addressing. On Waiheke commercial waste is dumped free at the Matiatia carpark drop off and this is subsidised by other ratepayers. Similarly commercial landscape companies pay nothing to drop off hundreds of tons of greenwaste.


Question 3:

Auckland households use a mix of bags and wheelie bins for kerbside refuse collections. The receptacle type needs to be standardised to gain efficiencies. Do you agree or disagree with the council’s proposal for all households in the Auckland region (excluding the Hauraki Gulf Islands) to be provided with wheelie bins for kerbside refuse and why? (See Part C, section 2.2 for more information).

Disagree

The combined bag and bin system means separate trucks must make a succession of trips around the island, making the collection period longer, using more fuel, and increasing damage to our roads.

As wheelie bins are not suited to many properties on Waiheke I/we would like a return to the simple, economical bags-only system.

When bins were made available on the island some of us moved from a 60 litre bag to a 140 litre bin.

Gradually reducing the size of the waste receptacle in conjunction with community education programmes has been shown to effectively reduce the amount of waste households put out.

It is much cheaper to reduce the size of the rubbish bags provided to households than to swap everyone’s wheelie bins.

Recycling is what we do when we have failed to reduce waste. It must be subordinate to waste reduction.

Recycling should be carried out according to internationally accepted standards of best practice ie

  • separating the materials at source
  • achieving a high quality product that can be sold at its highest value
  • extracting maximum labour value (employing local staff) before the materials are transported
  • processing and packaging the materials to their highest density

This is not being achieved with the system of co-mingled wheelie bins and is a sustainability trap for the future. Centralised diesel dependent solutions which cart material at low value and low density expose us as ratepayers to rising energy prices.

I/We would like a return to the system of householder and kerbside sorting using old shopping bags that existed prior to 2009 and that was developed in accordance with the principles above.


Question 4:

Organic waste makes up approximately 50 per cent by weight (around 40 per cent food waste and 10 per cent green waste) of the contents of the average kerbside refuse bin or bag. The council proposes to provide a separate organic waste collection to divert this material from landfill to beneficial use (for example, to compost). The service would be rates-funded and, if refuse is disposer-pays, this would reduce what householders pay for refuse. Do you agree or disagree with the council's proposal to provide every household that needs one with a small bin for organic waste collection? (See Part C, section 2.4 & Appendix 4 for more information).

First reduce!

A lot of organic food waste does not need to be created in the first place.

A pilot study conducted by the Waste Resources Trust in 2010 showed that education programmes to teach households how to avoid wasting food were effective at reducing food waste by half.

In 2002-2008 Waiheke halved the amount of kitchen waste going to landfill by running community owned composting campaigns and promoting composting.

This is where the emphasis needs to be.

 Audits of  Waiheke’s waste show that the percentage of organic material in the average household on Waiheke’s refuse is considerably less (34% v’s 50% on the isthmus).

We need to build on this, not introduce a system that requires more big trucks, more fuel,  must be paid for out of rates and has the potential to reduce the uptake of home composting.

I/we would like to be able to drop off up to 2 cubic metres of green waste per household per year free of charge, to have it processed on the island and to return to the practice of donating mulch to schools and community gardens. 


Question 5: 

Different types (and frequencies) of inorganic collection services are currently provided across Auckland. The council proposes to provide a rates-funded inorganic collection every one or two years. Do you agree or disagree with the council's proposal?

Agree.

Also, what is your preference and opinion on the type of service the council should offer e.g. annual kerbside, a biennial kerbside service, or a booking system where council picks up items on your own section (not from the kerb) every year? (Council will continue offering an inorganic collection service until a suitable alternative can be provided.) (See Part C, section 2.5 & Appendix 4 for more information).

Preferred option: annual booking system

It is easier to handle a steady stream of inorganic material than one huge avalanche each year and so ensure that the maximum quantities are diverted from landfill.

The current system results in scavenging for valuable materials that is dangerous and unsightly.

This option should be developed in conjunction with the establishment of community resource recovery parks to maximize opportunities to divert goods and materials from landfill and decrease the risk of illegal dumping.  


Question 6:

The council proposes advocating to Central Government to introduce mandatory product stewardship schemes for packaging (such as cans and bottles for drinks) to increase recycling rates and transfer costs away from ratepayers and onto producers and consumers. It also proposes encouraging development of product stewardship schemes for products such as electronic waste, tyres and batteries. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal and why? (See Part C, section 2.8 for more information).

Agree.

Genuine waste reduction is only possible when manufacturers also take responsibility for the goods they are producing in the first place.  

Compulsory container deposit legislation would be an excellent start. 


Question 7:

The council proposes to implement a comprehensive communications, community engagement and community development programme to help householders adapt to changes in waste and recycling services and to help businesses and the wider community reduce waste to landfill. Do you agree or disagree with this proposal and why? (See Part C, section 2.13 for more information).

Agree

Comprehensive engagement and education is crucial.

To be successful they need to be undertaken locally by organisations that are knowledgeable and trusted by their communities.

On Waiheke it is very important that this kind of engagement is two-way, so people are confident their own ideas and solutions to problems will be heard. Waihekians have a history of coming up with sustainable, practical solutions to their own waste problems and want to have the scope to act on their own behalf.

Education should be focused on encouraging people to reduce and reuse in preference to recycling materials that weren’t needed in the first place.


Question 8:

Please provide any other feedback on the draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan. See Part C, sections 3.1 and 3.2 for details of other actions in the plan – including community grants, a Resource Recovery Network, enhanced recycling in schools, and more.

Waste cannot be treated as a commercially sensitive business. It should be a requirement of every contract that full disclosure on waste volumes, waste operation costs and progress towards reduction targets must be disclosed to the public.