Landfill fee-rise looms as plastics pile grows
New Zealanders could pay a $140 per tonne tax to dump waste at all landfills across the country as piles of plastic mount.
Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage said increasing the waste levy from $10 per tonne and applying it to all landfills, not just 10 per cent of them, would help respond to China’s refusal to process New Zealand plastic.
China banned imports of all contaminated plastic waste last year in a move dubbed the ‘‘National Sword’’. The measure came into effect in January.
Sage said piles of recycling had mounted at small sorting stations.
Larger recycling sorting companies had found capacity in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia where they could export New Zealanders’ plastic waste.
Last year New Zealand recycling companies sent 41 million kilograms of plastic overseas to be processed, according to Statistics New Zealand export data. More than 7 million kilograms went to China.
A Stuff investigation into New Zealand’s recycling industry earlier this year revealed New Zealand recycling companies were bartering for space at processing facilities in other Asian countries following China’s move.
Sage has set up a taskforce within the Ministry for the Environment to tackle the growing problem caused by the National Sword.
‘‘MfE has been working with councils, businesses, recyclers and processors and others to develop some short-term solutions to the fact that we no longer have that market in China,’’ Sage said.
The waste levy, charged at landfills, goes into the Waste Minimisation Fund. It raises about $13 million annually.