Waste Management and Minimisation Strategy Review

Overview

Statement of Proposal

Hamilton City Council is seeking feedback on its proposed Waste Management and Minimisation Strategy Te Rautaki Whakataaharahara Para 2024 - 2030 (The Strategy).

The proposed Strategy guides Council in managing and minimising waste in Hamilton Kirikiriroa.

Councils play an important role in managing and minimising waste in New Zealand. The Waste Minimisation Act 2008 (the Act) places an obligation on all councils to promote effective and efficient waste management and minimisation within their district. The Act requires councils to prepare a waste management and minimisation plan and review it every six years.

This Statement of Proposal is made for the purposes of sections 83, 86 and 160(3)(b)(ii) of the Local Government Act 2002, the Health Act 1956 and various other Acts.

What is The Strategy?

The Strategy builds on our previous plan from 2018 - 2024. The proposed Strategy outlines:

• Hamilton's vision for reducing waste
• outcomes we want to achieve
• guiding principles that will inform our actions and decision-making
• focus areas and actions Council propose to take over the next six years
• targets to increase waste minimisation in Hamilton.

Read The Strategy at Hamilton.govt.nz/WMMS

Why are we doing this?

Globally, we are creating more waste than ever. Our 2023 Waste Assessment estimates the amount of waste Hamiltonians send to landfill has increased by approximately 28.5% since 2017. If we don't take action, this amount of waste will continue to increase as our population grows. The Waste Assessment also told us:

• a third (34%) of our kerbside waste in Hamilton is food scraps
• more than half (54%) of what is still going in our red lidded kerbside rubbish bins doesn't need to be going to landfill
• construction and demolition waste is a significant waste stream in our city.

Our focus needs to remain on increasing resource recovery by moving up the waste hierarchy e.g. reducing, reusing, recycling (including composting) Hamilton's waste. The Strategy gives us a roadmap for what we will do in Hamilton to manage waste and create a low-waste city.

What's included in The Strategy?

As part of The Strategy, these are the areas we want to focus on:

• further reduce the amount of organic waste going to landfill
• ongoing efforts to reduce construction and demolition waste
• support the move to a circular economy - keeping things in use for as long as possible
• recover more from waste streams
• adapt to changing lifestyles and ways of living
• shape national direction on waste and resource recovery.

When preparing The Strategy, as per section 44 of the Waste Minimisation Act 2008, we have been guided by the Aotearoa New Zealand Waste Strategy – Te Rautaki Para. This strategy was launched in March 2023, and has a vision of ‘by 2050, Aotearoa New Zealand is a low-emissions, low-waste society, built upon a circular economy’.

It details the goals, guiding principles and work priorities for achieving this vision.

The key priorities of the Aotearoa New Zealand Waste Strategy have been reflected in our focus areas and actions which include:

• increased focus on the reduction and diversion of organic waste
• increased actions to address construction and demolition waste in Hamilton
• increased focus on the circular economy and developing a network of accessible community resource recovery hubs
• increased effectiveness of the kerbside services, introduced in 2020 as part of our current Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2018 - 2024
• actions to support changes to the way we live - our consumption habits and growing population and housing in Hamilton.

Have your say on The Strategy

Before making any final decisions, we would like to hear from our community. You can have your say between 23 January - 23 February 2024. 

Next steps

Council will collect and analyse all feedback and this will be presented to the Hamilton City Council Hearings and Engagement Committee meeting in 2024. At this meeting, anyone who submitted will be welcome to make a verbal submission in person to support their views.

The Council will then consider all the views and make a final decision.