Tanczos Nandor: Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill — First Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3576] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
We live in a deluge of waste. About a tonne of waste per person goes to landfill every year in this country and that is about as bad as it gets anywhere in the world. As a nation we are just stupid when it comes to waste. It is not just about the environmental impact the toxic leachate that dribbles out of landfills or the methane gas that escapes or flares into conflagration; it is about the waste of waste—the squandering of resources that landfills represent and the resources wasted during production. It is estimated that about 90 percent of waste is generated pre-consumer in resources wasted by our single-use mentality and in the human resources wasted by ignoring the rich job opportunities in reuse and recycling. 
It is a bit of an evolutionary intelligence test. Have we clicked on yet to the fundamental reality of life on earth—that we live on a finite planet with limited resources and that our very existence depends on how we husband those resources? The very existence of waste indicates a failure of our understanding because there is no waste in nature only by-products that feed another part of the system. Humans must learn from the wisdom of life itself if we want to develop ways of living that are truly sustainable. 
This bill is an attempt to move us in that direction. I do not claim any great wisdom for myself. I inherited the bill from Mike Ward and I thank him for the valuable work he did. I also thank Lu White and Chris Teo-sherrell who probably deserve more credit than any of the politicians do. But I most of all want to thank the pioneers of resource recovery in this country the people who have invested their energy their money and their years to prove the economic social and environmental benefits of waste minimisation the people at the Community Business and Environment Centre of Kaitaia; Waiheke Waste Resource Trust; Xtreme Waste Whaingaroa; the Environmental Education and Resource Sustainability Trust in the Bay of Plenty; Environua Community Trust Levin; Mana Community Enterprises; Innovative Waste Kaikoura; Hurunui Recyclers; TerraNova Christchurch; WasteBusters Trust Canterbury; Waitaki Resource Recovery; Whitehorse Recycling Trust; Ahuriri Resource Trust; Central Otago WasteBusters; Wanaka WasteBusters; the whole community recycling network; the Zero Waste Trust; Envision; the Recycling Operators of New Zealand; and all the others who have given so much. 
Because of them real progress has been made but they continue to work in a difficult economic environment because landfills are unfairly subsidised by ratepayers. But now we are beginning to run out of space for landfills. Barry Carbon when he was chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment said that fewer than 10 potential sites for new landfills had been identified and that positive action to reduce waste reduction had been needed 10 years ago—10 years ago! Well we cannot reverse time but we can take responsibility now. 
This bill is a legislative vehicle to address the problem. Members may not agree with all its provisions; I understand that but if they agree that waste minimisation is desirable if they agree that economic instruments have a place and if they agree that businesses need support to identify where waste reductions might be made then they should vote for this bill. 
The bill would establish a national agency to set and monitor targets for waste reduction approve and monitor extended producer-responsibility programmes and administer the waste minimisation fund. It would coordinate public education and provide advice to the Minister. The bill would give territorial authorities more power in respect of waste minimisation. Operating singly or jointly as waste control authorities territorial authorities would be empowered to enforce the provisions of the bill through by-law making and licensing provisions. 
The bill would allow bans to be placed on the landfilling of materials that can be recovered. Let me be clear that any ban could be applied only where adequate recovery capacity already existed. The bill would create a landfill levy on every tonne of waste. That would disincentivise waste generation and provide funding for waste minimisation initiatives. The money would be split between local waste control authorities and the national waste minimisation authority. 
The bill would require brand owners to take responsibility for the waste generated throughout the lifecycle of their products. How they did so would be up to them subject to the approval of the waste minimisation authority but the idea would be to encourage waste reduction in the design of production and distribution systems. Bearing in mind the waste hierarchy I say that reusing and recycling is great but reducing waste has to be the priority. 
All organisations under the bill would be required to adopt and implement waste minimisation plans. Those would be phased in over time to allow plenty of time to develop those plans and organisations would be assisted with finance and advice by the waste minimisation authority. 
Lastly public organisations would have to consider waste minimisation in their purchasing and they would have to report on their waste generation each year. Essentially the bill would provide an economic engine to drive waste minimisation through the levy. It would provide a body to provide national coordination and leadership and it would give a mechanism to reduce the production of waste in the first place through the extended producer-responsibility provisions. 
 Members probably know that local councils the resource recovery sector and local community groups have been calling for a number of those things over a number of years. Local councils have statutory responsibility to manage waste but they have very little power. The recent High Court decision in  
Carter Holt Harvey Ltd 
 v  
North Shore City Council 
 is a case in point because the court said that councils do not have the right to levy private waste operators except for the recovery of costs. That means that local councils are prevented from using a levy to disincentivise waste generation or to fund waste minimisation initiatives. Interestingly the plaintiffs in that case supported the idea of a levy as long as it was applied consistently on a national basis and as long as its use was hypothecated for waste minimisation. They clearly said they did not want the money simply going into council coffers to be spent on who knows what. They wanted transparency and they wanted the money to be tagged for a specific purpose. Well the bill does that very thing. I understand it will need some amending to align it with any sector agreements that are reached and I know that Local Government New Zealand and waste industry people are working negotiating and talking in order to discuss how such a levy would best work. 
I recognise that the bill might be too prescriptive in places and I am comfortable with the idea of negotiating amendments. I am comfortable with the idea that the bill will go to a select committee and that we will hear from the public local government waste sector people resource recovery people and the community sector and as a result of that we will amend the bill. That is what the select committee process is all about. But in principle let us recognise that this is a sound approach to reducing our waste deluge. I look forward to engaging actively and widely with other political parties across this House with the public and with different sectorial groups and I look forward to cooperating with all of those players to make this bill as effective practicable and achievable as possible.