There is a lot happening on the campaign front as the incinerator industry ramps up its assault on Aotearoa NZ, and finds a government willing to assist it in the destruction of our climate, damaging the health of rural and provincial communities and locking us into decades of waste production.

Te Awamutu – Board of Enquiry 

The Environmental Protection Agency has called for submissions into the massive Te Awamutu incinerator. 

This project is quite simply insane: a plan to burn 3 million tyres plus 100,000 tonnes of toxic plastics and scrap metal waste a year in a residential neighbourhood emitting massive amounts of CO2, dioxins and sulphur dioxide. A project the EPA has admitted has “global implications for the climate.” Wow. 

These submissions are due on 18 December. If you already made a submission, this will be included in the process. You can also make a new or additional submission.

This has to be stopped. Don’t Burn Waipā is the community group working on this on the front lines>>

 

Waimate – Fast Track

The Waimate incinerator, the biggest incinerator proposal in the country, is listed on the Fast Track bill. The entire project has a chequered history, but appears to have the fulsome support of Shane Jones who desperately tried to give the then company money back in 2018 only to be warned that its founding director was under investigation by the SFO (and later convicted of corruption) and that the project was an economic and environmental loser. 

Despite the fast tracking, community opposition remains staunch and powerful. Local Waimate councillors have just agreed that the Mayor should write to the Government requesting it remove the proposal from the list of projects to be fast-tracked.

Local group Why Waste Waimate is determined to stop this project. Find out how you can help them>>

 

Rotorua – Pyrolysis trial breaches conditions

A six-month waste pyrolysis plant in Waimangu (south of Rotorua on SH38) has finished and has breached the air emissions limits for carbon monoxide, nickel and chromium. It also failed to do the dixoin testing as required by its consent conditions. We have written to the Regional Council outlining these issues and requesting confirmation that the company is in breach of its consent conditions. We are demanding that should a full consent come to Council, that it must be publicly notified.

 

Air NZ – Fantasies about “sustainable” aviation fuel from burning rubbish continue

Last week, Air NZ published a glowing media statement about their research into gasifying wood and other waste streams they say, “shows local production of sustainable aviation fuel could support fuel resilience and security.” The report, partly funded by MBIE, and carried out by the company that stands to profit from its development, unsurprisingly concluded that this was a magic fix for New Zealand’s aviation CO2 emissions but “New Zealand shouldn’t get left too far behind or we risk seeing the flow of capital go elsewhere or our valuable raw materials being swooped up by other markets for their own SAF.” The not-so-hidden-agenda here is a campaign for government support for development of the industry. Unfortunately, wood waste is difficult to collect and amass in quantities needed to sustain the industry which is why the real plan is to throw in any waste stream they can get their hands on: “A second phase of the study, exploring the potential for municipal solid waste (household and commercial waste) as a feedstock for the LanzaTech carbon recycling process, is expected to be completed over the next few months”

It is really galling to see people’s rightful anger over huge slash waste that devastated communities in Te Tai Rawhiti during Cyclone Gabrielle being used as a prop for an industry that not only won’t solve the myriad problems of plantation pine, but is just a cloak for the waste incineration business. Aviation emissions aren’t going to be cut by SAF, they are going to be cut by less air travel. Something Air NZ doesn’t want you to know.

The Regeneration Not Incineration campaign will keep on working to stop these fake, false solutions to waste, climate change and the biodiversity crises. We stand for real zero waste solutions that stop production of waste at the source, and implement systems that uplift the lives of everyone. Thanks for your continued support! 

 

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