Design guide to help establish recycling parks

A new design guide will help with setting up Resource Recovery Parks where New Zealanders can drop off unwanted appliances and goods instead of dumping them at landfills, Environment Minister Trevor Mallard said today.

"The Resource Recovery Park Design Guide was funded by the government and developed by the waste industry and engineering consultants. It helps local authorities and commercial waste companies setting up resource recovery parks. It describes key actions and criteria for the establishment, design and operation of the facilities," he said at the launch of the Resource Recovery Park Design Guide at Trash Palace in Porirua.

"The Labour-led government wants to encourage sustainable behaviour. Kiwis are getting better and better at recycling, and this raises the bar for finding good uses and new markets for recycled and recovered material, preferably here in New Zealand.

"At a resource recovery park, recyclable materials such as appliances, furniture or household recyclables are collected and sorted for reuse or recycling, and valuable components can be recovered. This means that less material goes to landfills, and there is a more efficient utilisation of resources that would otherwise be wasted.

"The guide fits with the purpose of new legislation, the Waste Minimisation Act, which focuses on reducing waste through activities such as resource recovery, recycling and avoiding waste in the first place.

"With the Waste Minimisation Act in place, I expect that demand for resource recovery parks will rise.

"When products become ‘priority products' under the Act, certain manufacturers, importers and retailers will have to take responsibility and reduce the waste and the environmental impacts from their products," Trevor Mallard said.

"Resource recovery parks will help in establishing the infrastructure we need to take our waste minimisation efforts to the next level. And the easier we can make it for all parties to set up such an infrastructure - the more valuable resources we will divert from landfills," Trevor Mallard said.