The proposals would combine these two Acts into one, extend producer responsibility and permit local government to use its share of the waste disposal levy on a wider range of activities unrelated to waste.

“The Zero Waste Network Aotearoa has been advocating for the Waste Minimisation Act to be updated for many years. Most of the proposals outlined in the consultation documents are positive steps forward for our sector. We need these basic blocks in place so we can build more effective reuse and recycling systems.” says Zero Waste Network spokesperson Sue Coutts.

“However some careful thinking needs to be done to find the right balance on the range of activities councils can spend their waste levy fund allocation on.”

“We are especially pleased to see the focus on extending producer responsibility. The proposals will put a better framework in place for developing schemes to collect up products, like e-waste and textiles, and packaging, like drink bottles, cans and cartons so they can be reused and recycled,” says Coutts.

“Making producers responsible for covering the real costs to collect, sort and transport the products and packaging they put into the market will take the burden off ratepayers and councils. A better producer responsibility framework is the first step towards setting up effective and easy to use systems like a Container Deposit Return Scheme that would collect 85%+ of our empty drink bottles, cans and cartons and radically reduce litter.

“The Waste Levy is a critical tool which uses a charge on each tonne of rubbish to create a pool of capital to invest in building waste prevention and reduction infrastructure. This strategy only works if the pool of capital is ring fenced for waste minimisation and closely related activities. Otherwise, it will fail to address the very problem it exists to solve," says Coutts.

“Expanding the range of activities that councils can spend their allocation on to cover anything that could have an environmental benefit or reduce environmental harm sets the scope too wide. Diluting this fund creates a mismatch between the very high public expectations around waste minimisation and the actual capability of councils to deliver.

“It does make a lot of sense to remove the waste levy exclusion for waste-to-energy. Closing this loophole means landfill and waste-to-energy disposal options would both face the same cost structure which is a fairer way to approach it,” says Coutts.

“We encourage everyone who wants to prevent waste, litter and pollution and increase reuse, repair and recycling to have their say before this consultation closes on 1 June. Then the challenge for us all will be getting the best version of the updates through the house so we can get on with the practical work of putting real solutions to our waste problems in place.”