by frog
Today the waste levy, a part of the Greens’ Waste Minimisation Act, comes into force. The levy will be $10 per tonne of material sent to landfill, and the revenue will go into waste minimisation projects.
You might be thinking that in a recession we need another government imposed levy like Jeanette needs a new Hummer, right? But rather than being an additional tax, the new levy shifts cost onto the producers of waste and away from ratepayers and the environment. It’s smart economics.
As Metiria puts it, “It’s a ‘polluter-pays so people-save’ solution – the public will have more opportunities to recycle, we will pay less rates for landfills, and our environment will be improved.”
It’s worth noting that we have lagged behind other countries in adopting a pricing instrument to encourage waste minimisation, and at $10 per tonne our levy is pretty modest. In the UK, you’d pay a landfill tax of NZ$120 per tonne, in Denmark, its NZ$105, in Sweden its NZ$86. The Scandinavian countries in particular have experienced significantly higher recycling and reduced landfilling as a result.
And that’s exactly what we hope to achieve with the levy and the raft of other tools in the Waste Minimisation Act. We have to think boldly if we are going to tackle the 3.2 million tonnes of waste that we throw in the landfill every year.
The Minister for the Environment has said that the waste levy is an incentive-based approach that fits neatly into the BlueGreens preferred way to increase recycling rates. Hence the Bill was supported unanimously in the final vote, and despite pressure from ACT, the new Government has implemented the Act.
So how will it work? Basically half goes to councils to develop additional waste minimisation projects. This might mean kerbside recycling can be introduced in areas where it’s not currently available. Councils will be able to diversify into collecting and recycling new waste streams, such as kitchen and green waste, or e-waste.
The remaining 50% (minus some administration costs) will go into a new contestable Waste Minimisation Fund, and will be available for other waste minimisation projects run by councils, community groups and private sector. We’re pretty excited about the possibilities for this Fund. The Greens have proposed that a proportion of the new Fund should be set aside for community projects, because community recycling operators are committed to a zero waste future, and have a proven track record of developing low cost and innovative schemes that protect their local environment and create local jobs. Research has shown that the community recycling model returns significantly more money to the local economy that nationally or internationally owned private companies. And there’s ample Green New Deal job-creation opportunity in the community sector.
Now what is needed is for the government to get bold in implementing the rest of the Act, particularly Product Stewardship. When manufacturers and retailers take responsibility for the life-cycle of their products, by redesigning them to create less waste, and by putting in place systems to take back products for recycling and reprocessing, both the producer and consumer have more options to avoid the levy. Product stewardship and a levy are complementary.
So we’re celebrating the start of a new era today, one where the cost of waste disposal is borne by the producer of the waste, and one that will provide impetus and much needed resourcing for waste minimisation.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Wed, July 1st, 2009
Tags: environment, Metiria Turei, Russel Norman, Waste
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
If I ruled….
I’d get together with the aussies and have packaging regulation.
All glass bottles the same colour.(brown probably)
All plastic bottles (and their tops) the same grade of plastic. Recyclable of course.
All food wrapping and plastic bags the same grade.
All cardboard boxes collapsable (as per Euro standards)
Ban styrofoam packaging.
A deposit on all new bottles, tyres, batteries, oil, cellphones,appliances etc etc, paid out on safe return to base.
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samiam, while your prescription is slightly too prescriptive for my liking, if you were the Minister for the Environment (or had his ear), you could actually do all these things – the Waste Act enables such regulation (after expert advice, public consultation and collaboration with stakeholders). Some simple product stewardship schemes for plastic bags, packaging and e-waste would be a good start!
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Does the Act allow the $10 tax to be increased by Order in Council or does it require an amending Act to do that?
While I can see the political realities for implementing the tax at one-tenth the rate used in the Scandinavian countries I can foresee major problems if $10 is within the price elasticity of waste disposal, ie minimal impact on the waste stream leading to calls to abolish the “failed” tax.
I have seen research showing that a tenfold increase in carbon taxes on motor fuels from 9c/l to 90c/l will increase the uptake of fuel saving strategies and tactics 100-fold. Surveys of linehaul truck customers have shown similar non-linear responses to freight price increases, although it is worthy of note that the majority of respondents would react to higher freight costs by reoganising supply chains to permit the use of coastal shipping rather than simpling shifting to railfreight.
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Samian, I like the lines you’re thinking along. some comments:
> All glass bottles the same colour.(brown probably)
what’s wrong with clear glass?
> All plastic bottles (and their tops) the same grade of plastic. Recyclable of course.
Seems to me we should be able to have re-usable plastic bottles. All the advantages of glass, but lighter, so it takes less energy to transport them.
> Ban styrofoam packaging.
I’ve heard it suggested we could replace it with popcorn. I wonder how workable this is?
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Some councils are not serious about recycling, and in all honesty I’m decidedly unimpressed with the way bubberment handles it to.
They CAN get serious about. But when??????
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Brown glass tends to protect the contents better I’m led to believe.
Styrofoam replaced by shredded paper or ‘egg carton’ type moulds.
Frog, what’s too prescriptive about that? Any food, drink already has a bunch of compulsory requirements, what I’m suggesting would be the least of them.
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All glass bottles the same colour.(brown probably)
If you have proper seperation required (eg. one box for green, another for brown, a third for clear) as they do in Germany, that’s not a problem. My European friends are horrified to find we throw everything into the same box.
God forbid that we ever get decent recycling schemes. That’s just going waaay too far. Maybe at this rate in a few decades we’ll be where other nations were 10 years ago.
Good luck with the implementation.
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I haven’t seen popcorn but some products arrive at the university in a sort of expanded cereal foam that looks a bit like cheap snack foods and can be eaten if you are desperate. I wonder if you can mould it as easily as styrofoam though. Paper mache can be moulded and used to be used much more widely.
Recycling is a secondary consideration surely? The bigger problem minimising waste before its manufactured. Avocados in plastic trays. blister packs, even plastic stickers on fruit.
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I say if this levy isn’t enough to reduce waste to landfill much, raise the levy! And bring on extended producer responsibility. Future generations will wonder how people could have been so irresponsible as our generation has been. We must put it right.
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And well done to the Greens!
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Looks promising!
What exactly is with this reference to the “BlueGreens”:
i.e. who exactly is being referred to with the term?
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BlueGreens are what the environmental leaning Nats call themselves. More generally, a bluegreen would be someone who thinks the planet can be saved while ignoring issues like poverty and resource depletion.
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Valis,
… or someone whom beleives that the planet can be saved, and the problems of poverty and resource depletion addressed, through the market better than through government enforced wealth-redistribution.
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Perhaps. But if you talk to them you usually find they barely have a clue of what the problems are, let alone the solutions, and let alone how a pure market approach will help.
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Valis,
Interact with enough of them and you will soon find that right-wing environmentalists are just like left-wing environmentalists; the vast majority of them are idiots with no understanding of any of the things they shout about. You have to go searching for one whom actually understands it to get any understanding of it yourself.
That said, the environmentalists tend to be significantly better than the non-environmentalists; even the ones whom are just there as a fad.
Being Blue-Green does not mean that they desire a pure market approach any more than being a red-green means you want to totally abolish markets.
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Voting on stuff that you know nothing at all about is one thing. They were ARGUING as though they knew something.
I was incensed by the arguments offered. Seriously. I am likely to be far more “polite” in any direct contact. You never get people on-side by insulting them, but jehosophat these people are STUPID.
respectfully
BJ
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And yet they still represent the upper portions of society intellect wise. Atleast most of them.
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I have found that this usually means that they have more intricate alternate realities.
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That brings to mind Descartes…
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The lunatic who separated the mind from the body as though it were possible or reasonable… yes… it often affects the ability to lie to yourself convincingly.
BJ
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As I suspected! Well, more power to the BlueGreens at the cost of the er Blue-er-Browns or something.
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10582082
New Zealand temperatures rising uncontrollably…..
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Cyanobacteria. I’ve studied them. Little substance. Handle with care.
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Went to the national cyanobacteria AGM. Cringeworthy.
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The key-note speaker’s name.
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Waste to energy plants turning rubbish into electricity is the way to go.
The trouble with recycling is that the more successful it is the more it destroys the price of the waste. Whereas the generators are always wanting fuel. And the vitrificiation plants and plasma furnaces can destroy toxic waste and capture the nasty metals in glass aggregate etc.
OUr present recycling schemes are a fraud. Future archeologists will wonder why we colour sorted out bottles before dumping them in a tip. I can imagine a learned Ph D thesis of the year 2070 concluding that the Green bottles must have come from Waitakere City, the White ones from the Eastern suburbs and the Brpwn ones from Manukau city.
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