KEY POINTS:
Local councils could compete for the recycling industry's profits if a new waste bill is approved, says the Packaging Council of New Zealand.
A new clause in the Waste Minimisation Amendment Bill, due for its next hearing on May 21, allows local government to pass a bylaw requesting confidential information from the companies who process waste and recyclable material.
The bill, introduced by Green Party MP Nandor Tanczos, gives a broad definition of waste which could include recyclable material.
Packaging Council executive director Paul Curtis said waste should be defined as material that has been discarded or abandoned by its owner.
Recyclable material was used by many New Zealand manufacturers as raw material in their products, he said.
"It is material the council doesn't own, has no jurisdiction over and would never end up in landfill."
The Packaging Council has been giving the Government figures since 1994 on how much packaging is consumed and recycled.
Mr Curtis said he did not understand why companies should have to pass confidential information on how much recyclable material they collected and processed to the council, rather than the Goverment.
"Councils do set up companies, they do enter the market, and if they chose to do so in this area they would be armed with extremely sensitive information."
Some recycling companies would have to spend extra money to provide the information should the local council call for it.
"In the waste industry you tend to work on a volume basis how many truck movements have been made or bales taken.
"If councils start asking for that information to be provided in weight, then the company would have to invest in weighing facilities they may not already have."
That expenditure would be on top of a levy of $10 a tonne of residual waste from recycling.
Mr Curtis said that if the bill went ahead, some companies would question the profitability of continuing to recycle materials, such as whiteware, for their products.
"There's a possibility [the whiteware] will have to go to landfill. Recycling is a business, and like anything else it's got to stand up economically."
The Packaging Council and its 130 members found out about the amended clause on April 9.
It was not included in the bill or the supplementary order paper which invited submissions.
"If we had seen that definition when we had been submitting we would have brought all those concerns to the floor. We now feel that our hands are somewhat tied."
