Draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2022-2028

We’re updating our plan for managing and reducing waste in our city, and we want to know what you think

Draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2022-2028

Our Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) contains an overview of the kind of waste issues we’re dealing with in our city, our vision, goals and objectives, and our action plan to achieve them. It outlines how we will manage our city’s commercial and household waste to 2028.

Our last WMMP was adopted in 2016 so it’s time to review the plan and make sure we’re still on track.

Key waste issues facing Tauranga

Per capita, our city produces more waste per year than the national average. In 2021 a waste assessment showed we’ve reduced the total amount of waste we send to landfill, largely as a result of the rollout of the kerbside service, but we can do better. We now need to focus on reducing construction and demolition waste. After reviewing our progress over the past six years, along with population changes and other events, we’ve identified nine key waste issues facing Tauranga.

• The way we buy and consume products leads to large quantities of waste. The easiest way to minimise waste is to avoid it in the first place
• Over half of everything we’re sending to landfill could be reused, recycled or composted
• The proportion of our community living in multi-unit dwellings is growing
• Litter and illegal dumping, which has environmental and financial costs, is increasing
• Businesses and organisations need better services to divert waste from landfill
• There’s a high volume of construction and demolition material going to landfill
• Disposing of biosolids to landfill affects cultural, environmental, social, and economic values
• The cost of disposal has risen due to changes to government waste levies
• Unforeseen events can result in high volumes of waste in a short period

What we’re proposing

Our proposed vision is to “reduce waste to landfill”.

While we considered the option of an ambitious “zero waste” vision, it was decided that in the six-year lifetime of this WMMP it would be unachievable.

However, TCC is undertaking further work in a broader strategic framework refresh project, which has a goal of working towards a circular economy.

How we’ll get there

We’ve created goals, objectives, targets and an action plan to help us achieve our vision.

Goals and objectives

Our goals are about valuing our resources, facilitating effective and efficient processes, and promoting sustainable practices.

Our objectives include:

• Encouraging everyone to think about a low waste and more circular economy in relation to the items they buy, how they’re packaged, and what will be left over to dispose of. The easiest way to minimise waste is to avoid it in the first place
• Ensuring everyone in our community can access waste services and infrastructure in a way that is equitable
• Working with our communities to reduce contamination within kerbside recycling and organic collections, and in recycling bins in our public places
• Working closely with local iwi, central government, other councils, our communities and private waste companies to find better ways to reduce waste
• Being innovative and trialing new ways and new technology to reduce waste
• Being led by tikanga and mātauranga Māori to adopt a holistic approach in taking responsibility for our waste
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with waste

Targets

We’ve set some ambitious targets to hold ourselves accountable. These include:

• Reducing the amount of household waste sent to landfill by 62% from the 2021 baseline of 200kg per capita
• Reducing the amount of organic food waste collected from the kerbside
• Increasing household reuse and recycling
• Halving the amount of waste sent to landfill from our Te Maunga Resource Recovery Park (formerly known as Te Maunga Transfer Station)
• Improving recycling of construction and demolition waste
• Diverting all biosolids from landfill (biosolids are what’s left over once sewerage has been treated)

Action Plan

We’ve developed an Action Plan that sets out how we will work with the community to achieve our vision, goals, and objectives. It sets out clear, practical actions that we’ll implement, either on our own or jointly, to achieve more effective and efficient waste management and minimisation in Tauranga.

Our action plan is a ‘living’ document that we’ll update regularly to reflect current plans and progress. We’ll also review it annually to make sure we’re adapting and responding to any unforeseen or emerging issues, or changes nationally and internationally.

We’ll report to council on our progress and share the results with our communities.

Resources

Document library

Draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2022-2028
Action Plan
Summary document
Waste Assessment
Hard copy submission form