Bruce Bisset. Photo / File
It's very disappointing the rapidly increasing amount of waste having to be dealt with by Hawke Bay's councils has been given such a soft-sell treatment by the joint Napier/Hastings waste management and minimisation plan.
First, because there is little if any attempt to minimise waste, as required by s.43 of the Waste Minimisation Act.
Instead, the proposal is all about waste management – methods of collection and disposal. The only section hinting at minimisation is the vague reference to "education", and what this comprises or aims to achieve is opaque.
Moreover the plan's main thrust – an "improved" collection regime – simply promotes bins of varying sizes; on a whole area basis, as if every household is the same.
If the councils intend taking over from private enterprise in managed bin services they must offer genuine options for individual households.
See, charges don't have to be uniform; a database can record each property's choice and produce a service charge to suit.
People will need incentivising to switch to any new system, and that's as much about ease as it is pricing. Putting out up to six different bins (as proposed) in a given week doesn't strike me as "easy" – especially on Napier's hills.
Given recyclable materials still require sorting after collection, surely mixed recycle bins would be more user-friendly – and create or retain more jobs.
The presumption of regular sustainable markets for all recyclables is highly debatable. But instead of looking to invest in small-scale plant to (for example) repurpose plastics into roading and building materials, the councils seem stubbornly focused on shipping it elsewhere in bulk – if and when they can.
It's the same with their approach to the "big ticket" item in the waste stream: organic material. More than a third of all kerbside collection is greenwaste or food scraps, and all of that could be utilised.
Instead, apart from some 6000 tonnes sent to BioRich for compost or PanPac for fuel, it goes to landfill, where it rots and mixes with other leachates to produce methane and other toxic gases.
Currently the lower end economic break-even point for, say, a commercial anaerobic digestion plant (producing high-grade compost) is around 40,000 tonnes per year. The councils are leery of investing in one because we're around 10,000 tonnes short of that level.
But greenwaste quantities are growing, and then there's all the horticultural cuttings that are currently burnt off, creating smoke and odour issues. Make burning prohibited but disposal free, and there would be no problem filling a plant's capacity – while making money from the resulting product.
Add that in doing so you'd extend the life of the present landfill by about 10 years while delaying the $30 million cost of setting up another such and this looks like a no-brainer.
But the councils seem to think this too complex for the average citizen, since there was no discussion about these or other options in the booklet delivered to all households; just questions about what size bin you'd like.
Even the full draft proposal leaves you wondering what brief the consultants were given, since minimisation concepts are almost absent and re-use schemes only get the once-over-lightly treatment.
Certainly dumping needs to be clearly separated from waste reduction, reuse, and recycling.
Then perhaps when the issue is debated in June we'll get a plan which sets appropriate achievable targets – en route to the zero waste ideal.
■ Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.