Auckland aims for zero waste

The city of Auckland is aiming to have zero waste to landfill by 2015.

Councillor Bill Christian, deputy chairperson of Auckland city council's works and services committee, said figures show that the amount of rubbish going to landfill is continuing to slowly increase.

"In 2001, when the bin size in Auckland city went down to 120 litres, there was a significant decrease in the amount of rubbish that council collected going to landfill. However, since then we are seeing a small increase each year, although this is happening as the city's population grows."

Regular waste audits have shown that three quarters of what currently goes to landfill could be composted or recycled. The biggest component of this is food waste.

He said, "There have been small increases each year in the amount of material being collected for recycling, which indicates that our existing recycling programs are working, but not to the fullest potential.

We need to build on the willingness of Auckland city residents to play their part, and work in partnership with them, industry and other government agencies, towards achieving zero waste to landfill by 2015."

The ultimate goal of the zero waste philosophy is to minimise and eventually eliminate waste through recycling, designing products to enable them to be repaired instead of discarded, reuse of resources, composting, more efficient resource use and reducing consumption.