“It’s a great decision by the Minister for the Environment David Parker to call in the application to build a waste incinerator in Waimate. This is an absolutely obscene proposal with huge climate and toxicity issues, and it undermines all our waste minimisation efforts” said Dorte Wray, General Manager of the Zero Waste Network.

“We wrote to the Minister more than a year ago asking him to call this in because communities are exhausted at having to fight off these predatory incinerator proposals that dump huge risks, health impacts and environmental damage onto them.”

The planned incinerator would burn 350,000 tonnes of rubbish a year, nearly all of which would have to be transported to the town. In 2019, Waimate sent just 1280 tonnes of rubbish to landfill, at least 460 tonnes of which could have been diverted through better recycling and composting systems. To run the incinerator, Waimate would have to bring in 348,719 tonnes of rubbish a year, or 955 tonnes per day.

“There has been a lack of decisive leadership at the Central Government level on the issue of waste-to-energy incineration. What that means is that one after another community is spending huge resources dealing with these proposals that everyone agrees are not in line with emissions reductions and waste minimisation.”

“The community of Feilding came together with Mana Whenua to defeat an dodgy waste-to-energy proposal there earlier this year. The community of Waimate has been doing exactly the same, and they are not going to stop fighting until this thing is well and truly abandoned.”

“The country needs a moratorium on waste-to-energy incineration proposals, particularly those involving household waste, because once built these facilities have seriously negative consequences.”

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