Waste Management and Minimisation Plan
Our long-term vision is to have the Buller community understand their waste consumption, their impact on the environment and commit to reduce, reuse and recycle.
West Coast Regional Waste Management and Minimisation Plan
New Zealand’s is on a strategic pathway towards becoming a circular economy and we all need to play a part in this. The West Coast Regional WMMP 2018 sets out how Councils will progress waste management and minimisation on the West Coast in line with this strategic direction.
This plan, which is reviewed every six years, paves the way forward, considering current policy, the legal framework and the West Coast region, with an overarching set of guiding goals and objectives.
Waste minimisation goals
To monitor progress towards these goals, Council uses three key indicators, which it aims to reach by 2025:
- Our goal is to reduce the average amount of waste per resident to 25 kg/per head per month
- Our goal is to reduce the percentage of contaminated recycling to 20% per month of total recyclable material collected
- Our goal is to increase the percentage of recycling collected to 35% per month of total waste produced.
West Coast Regional Waste Assessment
The Waste Assessment establishes the planning foundations for the Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) prepared by the Buller District Council, Grey District Council and Westland District Council.
The Waste Assessment and the WMMP outline each Council’s obligations to evaluate and plan for waste minimisation and management in their district under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008.
Find the most recent version of this document here.
Challenges for Buller
The district has very limited facilities to deal with refuse and no facilities to process recyclable materials. Nelson York Valley in Nelson is where most of Buller’s waste material goes, although there are two smaller landfills in Buller. Recycling is sent away to be processed.
Refuse and contaminated recycling from Buller are sent to a landfill, so it is important to recycle as much as possible. If recyclable materials are recycled right, they can have a second life.
Reducing refuse as part of the equation is extremely important since there is no means of reusing or processing refuse. Refuse items have reached their end of life. The only way to dispose of these items is in a landfill where they accumulate.
