Waste has not featured in the election campaign, despite being a major environmental concern for most New Zealanders. In the last three years central government progress on waste minimisation has languished. Positive steps have been abandoned. This is leaving businesses, councils and households without adequate tools to address their waste problems.
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Get more detail on the policy priorities here Link to Post – Practical steps our government can take to end our throwaway economy
A zero waste approach is vital for the health and resilience of a small island nation like ours. But it’s dropped off the political radar. Environmental issues have been pushed to the bottom of the list of priorities.
We need the next Government to step up and build the framework of laws and regulations that will make New Zealand’s economy more resourceful. The background work has already been done, they just need to get on with it.
How can you help?
We need to show all politicians that waste reduction matters to people and organisations at the grass roots. They need to know it’s worthwhile for them to support policy and law changes in the next term of Parliament.
The lead up to the election is an important time to reach out to MP’s and candidates of all parties. They’ll be out and about in communities, at ‘town hall’ meetings and trying to win votes.
This gives us the opportunity to:
- ask questions about our sector’s priorities at candidate meetings
- reach out to them and let them know what’s important to you and your organisation
- remind them of a few simple actions they could support in the next parliamentary term to reduce waste.
Two Key Actions:
- Encourage your staff and customers to go along to ‘town hall’ candidate meetings.
Ask simple questions that show people in the electorate are interested in waste reduction. This puts waste reduction on the politicians’ radar and can get picked up by local media. Many New Zealanders want to see these things happen, so it often draws crowd support too.
For example: “Given that 76% of New Zealanders support a container deposit return scheme for empty drink bottles cans and cartons to double recycling and halve litter, will you and your party commit to setting one up in the next term of parliament?”
Or “Two governments in a row have said they’ll update the Waste Minimisation Act to make producers more responsible for the products and packaging they put on the market. It keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list. Will you and your party commit to passing this law in the next term of parliament?”
- Invite MP’s and candidates from all parties to your sites and operations for a look around.
Show them what you do, how that helps your community and protects our environment. Explain to them that you need their help to pass laws and regulations that will make it easier to do your work and reduce the amount of products and packaging you have to deal with.
Coming for a visit helps them join the dots between high level concepts like the Waste Minimisation Act, the waste disposal levy, product stewardship or a container deposit return scheme and how this would support practical action going on in their electorates.
Zero Waste Positions You Might Choose to Support and Mention
1. Update the Waste MInimisation Act 2008 to set up a strong framework that makes producers responsible for the products and packaging they put on to the market.
2. Ring-fence waste disposal levy funds for waste minimisation, so there’s money to invest in reuse, repair and composting systems that keep resources in use for as long as possible.
3. Establish a container deposit return scheme for bottles, cans and cartons to:
- double recycling rates
- halve litter
- show how effective product stewardship can be
- create business and fundraising opportunities for members and community organisations
- build a take-back system that works for reusables.
4. Keep Aotearoa Incinerator Free. Burning rubbish in incinerators creates more problems than it solves. As a country we can’t afford to invest in industries like incineration, which cause harm to people and our environment. We need to separate out everything that can be safely reused, recycled or composted and work on changing the design of anything that’s left.
5. Keep it local. The government needs to do a better job of supporting small to medium scale local action by community organisations, iwi, hapū and māori enterprise and small to medium businesses.
In these tough times, when so many things are changing and so many environmental and social wins are being rolled back, hope looks like:
- local scale community action
- building relationships with hapū, iwi and māori enterprise
- growing our understanding of te ao māori
- investing in future generations
- creating businesses that put people and planet first.
Find a bit more detail on each of these here.
