Draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2023

Managing waste and ensuring good outcomes for the community can be a complex task. We need to look after the environment, take care of people's health, and make sure that this is done at an acceptable cost to the community. To achieve this, we all need to work together.

Under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 Council must promote effective and efficient waste management and minimisation in the Whangārei District. One of the key ways we do this is by adopting a Waste Management and Minimisation Plan.

Because the rubbish we collect in kerbside collections makes up less than a quarter of all landfilled waste, this Plan covers all solid waste and recovered material in the District, whether it is managed by us or not.

While the Plan is adopted by Council, it sets the priorities and a strategic framework for managing all waste in the District. So, we need input from community and business to ensure success. Once adopted, the actions will be put into our Long Term Plan and Annual Plan to make sure we can achieve them.

The chart below shows the breakdown of waste our District sends to landfill as a percentage. By understanding the make-up of our waste we can look for ways to reduce what ends up there.

Organic waste makes up around 23% of all waste going to landfill. This includes both food and garden waste, most of which could be composted.

We also throw away lots of plastic (12%), paper (9%), metal (14%), glass (1%) and timber (25%). When added together this accounts for a further 41%, which could be recycled or recovered in some way.

Other waste categories include construction rubble 11%, textiles 7%, nappies 7%, hazardous waste 1%, and rubber 1%.

Draft Whangārei District Waste Assessment 2023(PDF, 978KB)

Our vision for waste minimisation and management in the Whangārei District is:

To deliver community benefits and work towards zero waste to landfill. Whangārei businesses and households will be provided with efficient and effective waste minimisation and management services that recognise waste as a resource.

Our goals

• Avoid and reduce waste where we can.
• Manage waste responsibly - make it easy to recycle and safely dispose of the materials that can’t be recycled.
• Maximise community benefits - treat waste as a resource, a source of employment, provide multiuse facilities, cost effective services.

Our objectives

1. Avoid creating waste
2. Increase the recovery and reuse of resources
3. Ensure households and businesses have access to safe disposal of waste
4. Create opportunities for Whangārei District through jobs, new products, more efficient businesses
5. Reduce illegal dumping
6. Improve community understanding of issues and opportunities for waste minimisation and management in the Whangārei District.
7. Have a healthier and wealthier District through waste reduction initiatives and behavioural change.

This Plan uses the waste hierarchy to prioritise our actions. It prioritises producing less waste in the first place, followed by the diversion of waste through reusing, recycling and recovering of waste with safe treatment and disposal as a last resort. Safe treatment and disposal is the final option.

We need to produce less waste in the first place and encourage those who do produce waste to take greater responsibility for reducing it. We assessed all aspects of waste management across our District and found we could be more efficient and effective in these key areas:

1. A large amount of compostable and recyclable material including paper, plastics, glass and tin, is still going to the landfill, even with a free kerbside service. This can be improved through education and awareness.
2. Commercial and construction waste makes up a large proportion of waste disposed of to landfill with limited information on how much of this waste is diverted.
3. Illegal dumping of waste, along with inappropriate disposal by burning and burying has a negative impact on the environment.
4. A large amount of organic waste is going to landfill, especially food waste from households. The Government has signalled it may soon introduce mandatory household food waste collections in urban areas to reduce this issue.
5. A need for improved resource recovery facilities. There are opportunities to target materials for recovery and reuse including e-waste, construction and demolition waste, biosolids and reusable items like furniture.
6. Use of public litter bins for household rubbish leading to it overflowing and harming the environment. Incorrect use of public recycling bins makes the contents unsuitable for recycling.

We can’t solve all of these problems on our own. Our role is to facilitate a range of services, education programmes and initiatives to achieve effective and efficient waste management and minimisation within the District.

When the Plan is adopted by Council, the actions will be included into our Long Term and Annual Plan to ensure that we have the resources to deliver on our goals.

We will continue to adopt a largely user pays approach to delivery of waste transfer and disposal services in the District. Where there are services with a public good component, such as kerbside recycling, we will provide funding in whole or in part.