Work starts on the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre in 2013, much to the delight of project manager Stuart Hylton and transitional manager Leighton Minnell. The centre was funded from the government-imposed waste levy.
Work starts on the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre in 2013, much to the delight of project manager Stuart Hylton and transitional manager Leighton Minnell. The centre was funded from the government-imposed waste levy.
When is an incentive not an incentive?
The answer is … when you don't even know there was an incentive in the first place.
According to a recent report, the government is concerned that you, the public, are not responding to their incentive — an incentive you probably didn't even know existed and one which has indirectly cost you and businesses which send waste to landfill $192 million since 2009.
And this incentive to reduce waste is likely to rise significantly because the average New Zealander is producing 734 kilograms of waste every year, an increase of 20 per cent in recent times.
Under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008, for every tonne of waste sent to a landfill, the government charges a levy of $10 (plus GST) per tonne. This cost is to incentivise you to reduce the amount of waste you produce.
This levy is charged to companies that collect waste and dispose of it at a landfill - and, of course, it is then passed on to you, the customer.
The current Government, along with Local Government New Zealand, is becoming concerned that the public isn't responding to this incentive, so they are looking at increasing the levy to $140 per tonne.
The thinking behind this is similar to taxes on tobacco. Put the cost up high enough and you will eventually give up a bad habit, which both smoking and creating unnecessary waste certainly are.
After all, we can't keep filling up landfills with rubbish because that is not good for the environment — not to mention the huge cost of opening new landfills and maintaining them.
So, if the levy was to increase, you can expect the cost of rubbish collection to increase exponentially.
You will definitely feel it in your pocket because this levy is easily passed on to consumers and here in Whanganui the waste removal industry is cornered by two companies — Budget Waste Removal and Waste Management New Zealand — meaning there is little competition.
This may be especially so as both these companies are owned by the same Hong Kong conglomerate, CK Infrastructure Holdings, one of the largest infrastructure companies listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, and a company whose share price has doubled in the past 10 years. There must be plenty of money in rubbish.
The hidden cost to the Whanganui community may well be an increase in fly-tipping in public places.
An increase in the levy also pushes up costs for businesses.
Take, for example, local company Burgess Matting, owned and operated by Sandra and Russell Burgess and employing 17 staff.
Their business — which has operated since 1951 — is built on recycled tyres, but their business also creates waste which has nowhere else to go to other than a landfill. A $140 levy means increased costs, more expensive products and probably fewer sales.
Adding to that, recycled rubber chip is in short supply due to an unfortunate Australian arrangement for the supply/collection of the rubber chip that is the lifeblood of this local company.
The positive side is that the $192 million the government has collected since 2009 also goes to fund local council and private initiatives to reduce waste.
Our local Resource Recovery Centre is one of the beneficiaries of this fund.
There is also a contestable fund for special projects that even private businesses, like Burgess Matting, can apply for. However, it can only be used for capital costs, waste minimisation initiatives and educational programmes.
As a community, where do we go from here?
Well, we could go back to free curbside rubbish collections (it's never free, it's just added to your rates) but the trouble with that is it removes the incentive to minimise your waste.
People can be lazy and not bother to reduce waste when it can be dumped into the same rubbish bag and collected at the front gate.
However, if we continue to place a cost on rubbish bag collection and ensure its continuity, but also offer free curbside recycling, this is an obvious incentive to reduce waste.
Whanganui District Council is investigating free curbside recycling, though the costs will be incorporated into rates, of course. Discussions with councillors Rob Vinsen and Josh Chandulal-Mackay suggest that this could be done for as little as $2 a week per household.
Steve Baron
Personally, I'm happy to pay for rubbish collection through paid stickers if council can assure me this service can continue. That's because I don't want to pay for a wheelie bin that I will never fill every week.
And I'd like to have curbside recycling included in my rates because that would save me the hassle of getting it to the Waste Recovery Centre in Maria Place Extension.
One way or another, the government is going to make you reconsider what you do with your waste, so you may as well change your habits sooner rather than later and help the environment at the same time.
*Steve Baron is a Whanganui-based political commentator, author and Founder of Better Democracy NZ. He holds degrees economics and political science.
