Efforts fail to rein in waste
People in Palmerston North are throwing out more rubbish than ever despite efforts to reduce waste and recycle more.
The city council’s sustainability committee heard yesterday that the city sent nearly 55,000 tonnes of waste to landfill in 2022.
The amount per person had gone up from 544kg a year in 2017 to 607kg in 2022.
And although the proportion being recycled had increased, more than half of what was going to landfill could have been composted, reused or recycled.
The figures were worrying councillors faced with Ministry for the Environment targets to divert the amount of household waste going to landfill by 30% by July 2026, by 40% by 2028, and 50% by July 2030.
Senior policy analyst Peter Ridge said while it was not clear yet how the council’s performance against those targets would be measured, it was not certain the council had enough actions lined up to be able to meet them. If it did not, there was up to $1.5 million worth of waste levies it could lose.
Council activities manager for resource recovery and sustainability infrastructure Natasha Hickmott said around half of all waste going to landfill consisted of food scraps and green waste that could have been composted.
The volumes were estimated through an independent “solid waste analysis protocol” that involved searching the contents of samples of rubbish bags, commercial 240-litre bins, and what was dropped off at the Matthews Ave transfer station.
The council was planning to introduce a kerbside food waste collection service in 2028, but that depended on having a food scraps processing facility somewhere near Palmerston North set up by then.
Hickmott said one of the observations from the analysis was that people who had 240l bins were likely to throw away more green and food waste than those who relied on council rubbish bags.
Only 22% of households used council rubbish bags, with the majority having a private bin collection service.
Hickmott said it was her opinion that people who had the large bins filled them with green waste because it was convenient, because they thought they might as well fill the bin they had paid for, and because many people did not have a trailer or the means to take green waste to Awapuni for composting.
The figures have prompted the council to start thinking about whether there should be a kerbside green waste collection service.
Committee chairperson Brent Barrett said it was disappointing that despite a lot of work going into waste minimisation, the city’s figures were heading in the wrong direction. It was particularly disappointing to see how much green waste was going to landfill when it should have been treated as a green resource.
The council needed a strong plan, and strong community input, he said.
The committee has asked for the possibility of a mixed food scraps and green waste collection to be investigated.