Landfill renewal at odds with iwi

The new sorting shed will be built onto the end of the existing shed here. Checking out the proposed site, from left, is Taupō District Council Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor, Mayor John Funnell, MP for Taupō Louise Upston, council asset manager Brent Aitken and project manager Jason Dayne. Photo: Dan Hutchinson

The amount of rubbish going into the landfill on Tauhara Maunga, just east of Taupō, is about to decrease.

By Bronson Perich - Local Democracy Reporter

However, tangata and the mayor say it's just part of a larger ambition: the end of New Zealand's throwaway culture.

Taupō District Council says upgrades to the Broadlands Resource Recovery Centre will reduce waste going into the landfill by up to 8000 tonnes a year.

Construction is due to start in October or November. The cost of the project is $4.7 million. The Government is chipping in $2.3m through its Waste Minimisation Fund. Taupō District Council is fronting the rest.

Currently every skip brought to the Taupō facility goes straight to the landfill on Mt Tauhara.

Once the upgrade is completed, every skip and commercial waste load will be sorted with precision machinery, meaning potentially reusable items such as wood, metal and gib can be set aside.

Taupō District Council environmental impacts manager Brent Aitken described the grapples and their functions: “They can pick up a saucer or cup of tea, literally, with some of these machines.”

Resource consent renewal

The landfill consent for Mt Tauhara expires in 2027.

Taupō District Council told Local Democracy Reporting it had lodged an application with the soon-to-be-axed Waikato Regional Council for another 30-year landfill consent on Tauhara Maunga in July.

The district council has held a series of hui with several tangata whenua groups with strong ties to the maunga. Descendants of these hapū own the land blocks surrounding the dump.

The council sought support for its application to renew the 30-year consent. No hapū supported the 30-year renewal.

Two hapū said they were open to discussing a shorter consent, provided the council was committed to a genuine partnership and co-design of the district’s waste management system.

Tredegar Hall, a local tangata whenua environmental planning practitioner, said the issue was bigger than one landfill.

“This is about the waste system we want for Taupō District; what we can avoid, reuse and recover before deciding what genuinely needs disposal.”

Taupō Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor agreed things needed to change.

“We’ve had [sic] a throwaway culture in New Zealand,” Taylor said. “In fact, in most of the Western World for three generations, and we need to just refocus.”

In terms of engaging with hapū, Taylor said the door was still open.

“My ears are open, and as large as they are, they’re available to listen,” he said.

“I get it, nobody wants a landfill next to their place.”

The council is not expecting a response to its application from Waikato Regional Council until 2027.

Transfer station could stay if landfill remains

Council's Brent Aitken told Local Democracy Reporting the waste sorting upgrades didn’t necessarily mean the landfill would stay on Tauhara.

An option being floated if the council’s resource consent isn’t granted would be to truck rubbish outside the district, possibly to Hampton Downs.

“This transfer station is going to future-proof our district and communities,” Aitken said.

“It provides us with an opportunity not only to divert waste, but gives us the capacity to load all the trucks to take it somewhere else if that eventually becomes the outcome.”

Hall said that would not address the underlying problem.

“Whether it is Tauhara or somewhere outside our rohe, somebody’s whenua still carries the burden,” he said.

“We should take responsibility for the waste we create.”

Hall said the longer-term tangata whenua aspiration was Para Kore [zero waste].

“Para Kore doesn’t mean pretending all residual waste can disappear tomorrow. It means setting a direction where each generation produces less waste, recovers more resources and leaves less for the whenua to carry.

“Taupō-nui-a-Tia is a taonga. The opportunity now is not simply to decide where rubbish goes next, but to build a better waste-management system for the generations who come after us.”

Para Kore principles are used at Taupō events such as Waitangi Day ki Taupō and the recent Global Games at Owen Delany Park to reduce waste and pollution.

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.