Food waste collected from your home in proposed Wellington waste overhaul
Tuesday, 1 August 2023
Homes across the Wellington region could soon be able to have food waste collected, under a proposed overhaul of waste that will also see a construction and demolition waste processing plant set up.
The Wellington Region Waste Management and Minimisation Plan for 2023 to 2029 is now out for consultation covering all councils from Wellington City to all three Wairarapa councils, Hutt Valley, Porirua, and Kāpiti.
It aims to have a Wellington construction and demolition processing facility set up by 2026, an organics processing facility by 2029, three new resource recovery facilities by 2030, kerbside recycling collection from every urban house by 2027, and urban kerbside food waste collections by 2030.
There would also be three “resource recovery facilities” set up, which Deputy Wellington Mayor Laurie Foon said would be places where people could take anything that could be recycled or reused, but could also have repair centres, tool libraries, and other community facilities.
Foon said the big push for recycling was about the ecological crisis from waste, but also the carbon emissions prevented if items could be reused instead of having to be made from scratch.
It comes as the effects of climate change are topping global news. Heat waves are sweeping through China, Europe, and North American summers, with new research showing those in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing build-up of warming gases in the air.
One of those gases is methane, which accounts for about 20% of global emissions, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
The draft plan before councils aims to reduce biogenic methane, which is produced by living organisms, from organic waste at landfills by 50% by 2030. However, according to the New Zealand Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, 85% of the country’s methane comes from ruminants such as cows.
Foon foresaw issues with finding a place for a demolition and construction waste processing plant, but said that with the privately owned T&T Landfill filling up and the city council’s tip not taking much building waste, not finding something was not an option.
The Wellington City Council had so far unanimously supported the plan, campaigned for by Foon and councillor Iona Pannett for years, but that could change once the funding issue arose.
Pannett said that once construction and building waste, as well as organic waste, and sewage sludge - another council project - was taken out, the amount going to landfill would drop significantly.
Porirua Mayor Anita Baker said it was a good idea and the food scraps collection would be “awesome” but the sticking point would come with how much it would cost already stretched ratepayers.
“We need to chop rather than add,” she said. The costings were not yet available.
South Wairarapa Mayor Martin Connelly said there was a “broad willingness” in his community for the plan but “we are very conscious of costs at the moment”.
The council currently did kerbside recycling in towns but those in rural areas had to deliver their recycling to recycling centres in towns.