Draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2025 consultation information

Summary of Information – Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2025 | Mahere Whakahaere me te Whakamōtio Para 2025

The Dunedin City Council (DCC) is reviewing the Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) in accordance with the Waste Minimisation act 2008 (WMA). This Plan will guide how waste is managed and minimised in Ōtepoti Dunedin. This Summary of Information (in accordance with section 83 of the Local Government Act 2002) gives an overview of the proposed WMMP, so that you can provide your feedback more easily if you wish.

Overview

This WMMP is intended to protect the environment and improve social outcomes. It aims towards a more circular, community orientated, and local economy. The Plan sets out how waste minimisation will be improved in Ōtepoti Dunedin over the next six years. It complements Te Rautaki Para, New Zealand’s Waste Strategy, and Dunedin’s Zero Carbon Plan 2030, and aligns with Te Takiharuru (the DCC’s Māori Strategic Framework).

This Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP, or this Plan) was informed by the Otago Regional Waste Assessment 2023, and external engagement with key stakeholder groups.

Core Focus Areas

The Plan has four core focus areas have been chosen. These are:

• Construction and demolition waste
• Community-based resource recovery
• Diverting organics from landfill
• Taking a regional approach.

Guiding Principles |  Mātāpono

Guiding principles are included in this Plan to influence decision-making and contribute to positive and holistic outcomes:

• Top of the waste hierarchy (focusing on reducing waste and reusing materials).
• Leadership
• Accessibility
• Working locally and regionally
• Diversifying waste minimisation solutions
• Aligning with Te ao Māori, the Māori Worldview

Vision |  Kaupapa Matua

The vision for this Plan has been updated to:

Ōtepoti Dunedin is actively committed to preventing waste, reducing emissions, and building a circular economy to respect and protect people and the natural environment’s mauri.

Objectives

Objectives have been informed by the recurring themes which came from stakeholder engagement workshops and meetings for the review of the WMMP.

1. Circular economy – The top of the waste hierarchy will be prioritised in investment, design, and purchasing decisions.
2. Infrastructure and services – Improve resourcing of local infrastructure, and services to make good practice in waste minimisation convenient and easy.
3. Networking and collaboration – Enable wider collaboration with local community and business partners and with regional Territorial Authorities.
4. Education and communication - Provide waste minimisation education and communication to local community and business partners to enable best practice.
5. Advocacy, incentives, and regulation – Using a variety of means to achieve waste minimisation best practice.
6. Data - Ensuring mechanisms are in place for tracking and reporting progress and to inform decision making.

Targets |  Aroka

The targets for waste minimisation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been updated. There are two pre-existing areas of targets for waste minimisation and greenhouse gas emissions that we needed to consider for this Plan.

Te Rautaki Para, the New Zealand Waste Strategy, provides ambitious but achievable targets to achieve as a country. The DCC will align with these for Dunedin’s own waste minimisation targets.

The DCC has already adopted waste diversion and emission reduction targets in the Zero Carbon Plan 2030 that set the level of ambition locally. However the three of these are already achieved or very close to being achieved. Therefore, new waste minimisation targets are being proposed in the draft WMMP 2025.  The baseline year for both the Zero Carbon Plan and the WMMP targets is 2022/2023.

• Target 1: Waste generation: Reduce the amount of material entering the waste management system, by 10 per cent per person by 2030.
• Target 2: Waste disposal: Reduce the amount of material that needs final disposal, by 30 per cent per person by 2030.
• Target 3: Waste emissions: reduce the biogenic methane emissions from waste, by at least 30 per cent.

Actions

The targets will be achieved through the Action Plan of this WMMP. There are 39 prioritised actions and nine supplementary proposed, which are divided into separate areas for this Plan.

Each action in the Plan is set against the targets they will impact, the objectives they support, which key waste issue from the Waste Assessment 2023 that it will help address, and an indication of the level of impact the action is anticipated to have. Also included is an implementation method, Council’s role, how the action will be funded, the delivery timeframe, and a reference to where the action was sourced.

The sections for the action plan include:

• Overarching actions that will affect waste minimisation and management broadly
• Construction and demolition waste
• Community-based resource recovery
• Diversion of organics from landfill
• Rural areas
• Internal DCC actions
• Supplementary actions

Waste Minimisation Grants Framework | Te Aka Pūtea Tautoko o te Whakamōkito Para

Under the WMA, Territorial Authorities can provide grants using waste levy money, to encourage and enable waste minimisation in accordance with their WMMP. If the Territorial Authority wishes to, the WMMP must provide the framework for doing so (s43 (2d) WMA).

This next section gives a framework to outline the structure and guidelines for distributing contestable and non-contestable grants to organisations and projects. It ensures transparency, fairness, and effective allocation of grants.

These grants are to enable waste minimisation action by external organisations, in accordance with the vision, goals, objectives, actions, and guiding principles in this WMMP.

Decisions on the award of grants will be based on the following priorities:

1. Top of the waste hierarchy - enable residents or businesses to avoid waste, reuse, or repair items.
2. Waste streams - alignment with the material diversion targets in this Plan and the Zero Carbon Plan 2030.
3. Delivery - the applicant’s ability to deliver their project, expand local capability, and achieve strong waste minimisation outcomes.
4. Expand opportunities for diversion – increase the variety of sustainable waste minimisation solutions available and develop new capabilities in Ōtepoti Dunedin.
5. Scale - The quantity and volume of material that will be minimised from reaching landfill by an applicant’s project.

The Dunedin City Council’s Grants Management Policy also applies to the management of waste minimisation grants.

Other considerations could include collaborative and joint applications (i.e., between businesses or between community organisations), whether the organisation is local, creates equity for Māori, Pacifica, and new migrant communities, and whether the project contributes towards social, economic, environmental, and cultural outcomes.

Terms and Conditions for Kerbside Collections |  Kā Tūtohu me kā Here o te Whakamahi i kā Ratoka Kohika Paeara

Terms and conditions for using the Council’s kerbside collection services are provided in Appendix 2 of the draft WMMP 2025. These include:

• Complying with the correct, accepted materials for the correct bins.
• Not depositing prohibited materials in the bins
• The kerbside collections inspection programme follows three inspections, then if there is no improvement by the third one, the non-compliant bin is removed for three months. The bin can then be returned, at the owner/occupiers cost.
• Complying with maximum weights
• Timeframes for bins to be put out and taken in
• Putting the bin out facing the correct way for collection.
• Using the lid clip
• Improper use is unacceptable. If a bin is damaged by using it for anything other than the council service, then the cost of administration and delivery for a new one will be upon the owner/occupier.
• Using non-compliant containers or bags for collection can result in the suspension of service  for three months.