Te Taiao, The Environment.
I think about two centralised "Waste Recovery
Plants", one in Te Waipounamu,
South Island,and one inTe Ika Aa Maui, North Island.
My thinking is to legislate against, and eliminate all landfills within the country.
All Regional waste would be collected and transported, by air,sea road or rail, to their respective "Waste Recovery Plant", where the waste material would be recovered into usable material.
The Waste Recovery Plants "Must" be, by global standards,state of the art,that is capable of recovering all waste material, into reusable material, and I imagine these plants to be aesthetically friendly and complimentary to their surroundings.
This idea is purely based on protecting our environment, creating employment, and improving health and wellbeing for both humans and wildlife.
I also imagine that after proving these" Waste Recovery Plants" within our own backyard, that sometime in the future we as a country, could import Waste material from around the world, where they would subsidise the recovery process.
Following I imagine these benefits, to improve the determinants of health.
1) Job creation
2) Healthy People 3) Healthy environment.
4) Healthy communities.
5) Opportunity for all.
I too would like to see a more aggressive push towards resource recovery and building a circular economy in New Zealand. I went to Arup's workshop in Christchurch last year, and it's good to see there is a real appetite to move away from this linear approach to our resource consumption, with ambitious goals by Auckland already in place for example, to be zero waste by 2040. But looking at the current state of our recycling industry we certainly have a long way to go (even with things like bottle reuse, which has been common place in countries like Germany for decades) and need to make some drastic changes soon. This is where I see this big post-COVID infrastructure spend as being a good opportunity to invest in some much needed resource recovery infrastructure to move New Zealand towards a more sustainable future, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, and waste production.
Kia ora Karl - your thinking aligns with some co-creating Arup did last year to investigate circular economy solutions in response to the rising plastic waste dilemma across Aotearoa. Arup has committed to progressing the UN SDGs, and is a signatory to the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. It is clear that current patterns of plastic consumption globally and across Aotearoa are at odds with SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production.
Our Plastic Waste Incubator envisaged the creation of Recycling Superhubs to approach the challenge of mixed use plastics through economies of scale and reframing expectations of recycling as an essential service. Some key features of the Recycling Superhub concept include:
• improving national consistency in what can and can’t be recycled
• enabling clear messaging to the community and to product designers
• creating scale to tackle more difficult plastic types and products
• 3-4 strategic locations throughout Aotearoa providing maximum
coverage
• offering access equity, with “postage stamp pricing” for rural and
metropolitan communities
• building efficient logistics chains
• drawing on a national infrastructure status and needs assessment
to optimise placement and services
• investing in sorting technology and resource recovery innovations
• creating a hub for resource recovery and manufacturing applications
• investing in recycling as essential public infrastructure, encouraging
public/private co-investment.
The Circular Economy - Ohanga amiomio - aligns closely with the stewardship imperative of kaitiakitanga - as an essential foundation for a post-Covid19 transition toward a more sustainable circular system of consuming less and using our limited resources more wisely.
Feel free to reach out if anyone wants to discuss circular economy opportunities for Aotearoa further, or receive a copy of our Plastic Waste Incubator key findings!