Setting realistic targets to reduce waste

Waipa District Council is aiming to reduce 90 per cent of the 22,000 tonnes of general waste going into landfall each year, by 2035.

But the council admitted it would need community assistance to achieve that goal.

An estimated 59,000 tonnes of waste was created by farms each year and was ether stored, burned or buried, the council said.

Initiatives in the council’s waste minimisation plan looked to reduce waste by increasing recovery resources, effective waste services as well as better information for future decisions on reducing waste.

The council appointed Sally Fraser as its full time waste minimisation officer. She would coordinate activities to work towards reducing waste.

‘‘Feedback from the 33 submissions suggested we moved from a zero waste goal to a 90 per cent reduction which is more achievable,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s encouraging to see support for actions already included in the plan. It means council and the community are well-placed to work together.

‘‘There’s a lot of support for a local resource recovery centre, kerbside food waste collection, public recycling bins as well as advocacy at a national level for a bottle deposit scheme and levy on single-use plastic bags.

‘‘These are all options we are exploring in the next six years. We have already delivered some of the actions in the plan,’’ she said.

On average, a quarter of the 9kgs of refuse each week from Waipa households was food, 25 per cent was fruit.

‘‘In the past month we’ve held two worm farming workshops so there are now 100 new worm farmers in the district.

‘‘Those new worm farms could potentially save more than 5000 kgs of food going to landfill.’’

Fraser said the goal was to look at rethinking, re using and reducing rubbish so recycling and landfill became a last resort.

‘‘There’s lots of different ways we can use rubbish, re using jars, composting food scraps and recovering e-waste; it’s just a matter of changing our mind set.’’