Waste plan: handle with care

Business welcomes the Government's strategy on waste, but with due caution, says IRENE CHAPPLE.

Like a piece of grandma's oven-fresh apple pie, the Government's Waste Strategy was received by business with a whole lot of love and a little bit of caution.

Business has opened its arms to the strategy, but has warned that the contents, unless treated with care, could burn.

The strategy contains tough targets for local authorities and businesses. Responsibility for costs is laid clearly at the feet of the waste producers.

The aim is "zero waste", but this is looked upon as a long-term goal. Various other deadlines are set five to 10 years away.

In the past, waste policies focused on dealing with disposal rather than prevention.

The challenge, says the strategy, is to break the link between the amount of waste produced and economic growth. Its goal is to "achieve sustainable growth by using resources more efficiently - to produce more with less".

It wants substandard landfills closed by December 2010, and 95 per cent of New Zealanders to have access to recycling facilities by 2005. It suggests a waste levy or other "economic incentives" to reduce waste. A report to the Government on the value of such measures is expected by next year.

Producers are expected to take more responsibility for the life-cycle of products and a report to the Government on whether statutory backing is needed to encourage re-use and recycling is due by 2004.

Local councils are expected to implement "full cost pricing" - increasing the costs of landfill dumpings - by 2010.

The strategy's core goals are to lower social costs and risks of waste, reduce damage to the environment and gain economic benefit by more efficient use of materials.

It says businesses have a big role in waste reduction. Both the Government and businesses should use triple-bottom line reporting incorporating financial, social and environmental factors into end-of-year company analysis.

Businesses must show consumers how to repair, re-use or recycle, it says, suggesting accurate labelling of a product's components and directions on environmentally friendly disposal methods.

The strategy, to be reviewed next year after "extensive consultation", is intended to be relatively gradual rather than heavy-handed.

Business New Zealand chief executive Simon Carlaw called the strategy a good first step.

"But zero waste is not zero cost," he said. "No matter how well waste strategies may read, practical implementation requires rigorous economic analysis, and this is the obvious next step."

Carlaw said sharing of costs must acknowledge the "reality that the rate of growth... will determine our ability to fund new waste minimisation programmes".

The strategy approves such concerns.

"[Economic] incentives will be chosen in the light of New Zealand's particular characteristics and place in the world," it says.

"We are a small country with a widely dispersed population, a high proportion of small and medium-sized businesses and we import many manufactured items.

"Finding solutions that work for us all will require extensive consultation."

That was a positive sign, said Carlaw. "It represents a work in progress, but there still needs to be serious economic analysis.

"If you put levies on one part of the economy, all you are doing is accelerating going backwards.

"I've said in the past that only rich countries can afford to save their whales, and I've been pilloried for it.

"But the same thing applies with waste. [Reducing waste] is something we all aspire to but we can only afford it if we continue to have a vibrant and growing economy."

Carlaw said business and industry would want to play a large part in the strategy.

"This has come from the environmental quarter, and that is right and proper, but if it is applied to the economy, business needs to be listened to."

He said the strategy raised issues such as the definition of "true cost," and how it could be pinned to the true generator of waste. "For example, businesses pay half the total rates bill but are nowhere near half the number of ratepayers.

"Businesses will need to be very clear that there is not intrinsic unfairness in the new waste policy."

He also questioned the impact the strategy would have on trading relationships with countries that did not have such stringent waste policies.

The executive director of the Packaging Council, John Webber, said the world was moving towards addressing the issue in the way New Zealand was, and major companies were recognising the benefits of minimising or re-using waste.

He thought the strategy could affect smaller operators as true cost pricing was implemented, and suggested they could be mentored by larger businesses or organisations.



Stephen Tindall, founder of The Warehouse and chairman of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, encourages waste management as a business opportunity.

The Warehouse had reduced its solid waste being sent to landfills by 98 per cent, and delivered "significant financial savings".

Environmental co-ordinator Richard Morley-Hall said waste reduction at source had created most savings. "For example, not having suppliers fill all shoes with shoe-stuffing will save The Warehouse up to $2 million per annum in staff time and disposal," he said.

"Asking suppliers to use paper packaging instead of expanded polystyrene has prevented almost 2000 cubic meters of recyclable polystyrene from going to landfill."

Tindall said waste reduction made excellent business sense. It was "a new way of thinking".

"Rather than linear, it's cyclical."

* In Forum tomorrow, Fisher & Paykel recycling manager George Gray and Webber debate the issue of waste management.

nzherald.co.nz/environment