Ruapehu Joins ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ Campaign

Ruapehu District Council (RDC) is joining with 60 other councils in a national campaign targeted at reducing the amount of food waste being generated by NZ households.

The national food waste prevention campaign is called ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ (LFHW) and aims to enable NZ households to reduce the quantity of avoidable food waste that is currently being thrown away.

RDC Waste Minimisation Officer, Daniel Allen, said that the LFHW campaign is particularly relevant to Ruapehu where an audit of kerbside rubbish bags found that compostable material made up an average of 51% of the contents of the bags.

“What this tells us is that if every household started reducing food waste and composting where possible we have the potential to halve the amount of refuse going to landfill.”

“With Ruapehu’s landfill due to close within five years this is of significant importance to everyone in the District.”

“Besides the environmental issues failure to reduce the amount of food and other compostable material that is currently being thrown away is going to hit Ruapehu residents in their pocket.”

“At this stage the plan is to truck Ruapehu’s waste out of the District for disposal when our landfill finally closes.”

Obviously if we can reduce the amount of waste we are sending to landfill we can make a big impact on the cost to residents and ratepayers

Mr Allen noted that the LFHW campaign research estimated that NZ households spend a massive $872 million a year on food that gets thrown away uneaten.

“This is equal to the average New Zealand family throwing away more than $563 worth of edible food per year,” he said.

“The LFHW campaign surveyed 1,365 New Zealander’s, examined the contents of 1,402 household rubbish bins and had 100 families complete diaries of food disposal for a week in researching why food is being wasted and what can be done about it.”

Nationally the results found that 27% of households admit to being large food wasters and throw out more than $21 per week of edible food, whilst 38% of households admit to wasting $8 per week.”

Only 10% of households declare they waste nothing at all.”

Mr Allen said that RDC’s own waste audit undertaken in 2012 opened, sorted and weighed the contents of over 200 rubbish bags from the kerbside collection in Ohakune, Rangataua and Raetihi and every second bag dropped off at the Taumarunui Transfer Station.

The audit of the kerbside collection bags found that in Ohakune 59% of the rubbish bags was made up of compostable material or green waste while in Rangataua it was 48% and in Raetihi 45%.”

“Council’s own research and that undertaken by the LFHW campaign both reveal that a staggering amount of food waste and other compostable material is thrown away every week.”

“The national average is that over 30% of the rubbish put out for kerbside collection is food waste.”

“Everyone has a part to play in slashing the amount of food waste its huge financial and environmental toll.”

Mr Allen added that Council was seeking ideas and feedback on its plans for future waste disposal in Ruapehu with the imminent closure of the landfill as part of the current Long Term Plan 2015-25 consultation.

“Council’s position is that the cost of establishing a new landfill which has been estimated at around $5 million is prohibitive and the best alternative is to truck waste outside the district and be more proactive about recycling and composting, etc.”

“This is an issue that impacts on everybody so it’s important that people take this opportunity to tell Council what they think the best way forward is,” he said.

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