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Landfills
Environmental management of landfills in the eight cities is generally of a higher standard than in New Zealand as a whole, according to the 2003 BigCities report.
All eight cities have kerbside recycling services recovering a good range of emission-intensive materials from the waste stream.
None of the city councils currently offer a kitchen waste, biosolids, or construction and demolition waste recycling service.
The BigCities report assessed the eight largest cities’ progress in the management of both waste disposal and waste reduction. Three categories of waste were looked at:
- hazardous wastes – including materials that are flammable, explosive, oxidising, corrosive, toxic, eco-toxic, infectious or radio-active
- organic wastes – including garden and kitchen wastes, food processing wastes, and sewage sludge
- emissions-intensive wastes – including metals, paper, glass, concrete and certain other materials associated with major greenhouse gas emissions at an earlier stage in the product life cycle.
In general, the eight cities are performing better on both waste reduction and waste disposal services than New Zealand as a whole. Many smaller cities and communities do not have kerbside recycling services, and without these, recovery of materials from the waste stream is lower. In addition, despite some improvement in recent years, surveys by the Ministry for the Environment show that substandard landfills remain widespread in New Zealand.
Assessment of management of waste disposal focused on the ten key questions.
1. Is a kerbside collection service for recyclables available to urban
residents?
2. Does the kerbside service include recycling of a range of emissions-intensive
materials including at least metal cans, glass bottles, paper and some
categories of plastics?
3. Is kerbside collection and composting of garden waste available?
4. Is kerbside collection and composting of kitchen waste available?
5. Are biosolids diverted from land-filling to some beneficial use?
6. Are there policy measures to reduce construction and demolition
waste disposal?
7. Is there a user/polluter pays policy including full cost recovery
on waste treatment and disposal?
8. To manage hazardous waste, are there waste acceptance criteria at
city landfills and household drop-off facilities available?
9. Do the landfills accepting most of the city’s waste
have leachate collection systems?
10. Do the landfills accepting most of the city’s waste
have landfill gas recovery systems?