Organic material makes up the largest part of waste going to the landfill. This proposal is aimed at commercial kitchen waste — food scraps and vegetable trimmings, and other businesses with a large organics waste stream.

In the landfill, organic material breaks down, creating methane (a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change) and leachate (a liquid which can cause problems with ground water unless it is safely managed).

The proposal included for public comment in the draft community plan includes building an enclosed compost facility over two years, starting in 2004/05, at a total cost of about $6.5 million. This figure has been in earlier budgets, put aside for an enclosed composting plant.

The scheme would start taking in material in the 2005/06 year and the Council predicts it would cost about $1m a year to run, although the Council will investigate how those costs might be shared with the businesses producing the organic waste. The Council’s share of those processing costs would be funded from its newly established Waste Minimisation Fund – money collected from a levy applied to the waste tipping fee.

Last month’s draft community plan Council meeting decided it should not yet go ahead with expanding the scheme to include collecting from the city’s households. Instead, it proposes investigating how best to encourage people to cut the amount of food and garden waste being put into their rubbish bags. As another encouragement to separate this material, the scheme would see a cut in the cost of leaving green waste at the city’s refuse stations to half the general tipping fee.

The city’s organic waste collection is an important part of the Council’s Draft Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Plan, which is being distributed along with the draft community plan for public input.

This plan — also available on the web at www.ccc.govt.nz/waste — focuses on the next three to five years but also has longer-term aspects. It has been developed together with waste reduction targets which will help to achieve the Council’s long term goal of zero residual waste for Christchurch.

Copies of draft community plan documents and of the draft Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Plan are available from City Council offices and libraries, and on the web at www.ccc.govt.nz/ourcommunityplan or by phoning the Council on 941 8830. Public submissions must be in by 6 May.