Participation in WasteMINZ 2023 and supporting the new National Waste Strategy for New Zealand

Post Date
19 June 2023
Read Time
3 minutes
  • Sustainable waste management
  • Land quality & remediation

Our New Zealand and Australian waste and contaminated land experts at SLR and 4Sight – Part of SLR - were one strong team at the WasteMINZ Conference 2023 last week in Hamilton and were involved in the presentations, chairing sessions, discussions and learnings.

The conference was a fantastic opportunity to bring the experts together in-person for the first time in four years and reconnect with peers, colleagues, regulators and clients, to discuss the way ahead which will see national planning, regulatory and investment systems formed to support the development of essential infrastructure and the challenges and solutions to reduce waste across the supply chain.

Challenging the status quo was the theme and connected with the new national waste strategy that was released in March, which aims to transform how waste is generated and managed in New Zealand. This strategy also identifies applying circular economy concepts to our approach to soil management, as well as returning nutrients from organic waste back to the land and reducing the amount that goes to landfill. To address this, contaminated soil remediation and re-use was a key theme across the conference and how this supports New Zealand’s vision for achieving a circular economy by 2050.

Our Principal Land & Water Quality Consultant, James Blackwell presented his advice on how to achieve a circular economy for contaminated soil and discussed soil re-use options, which was well received, and the industry as a whole was enthusiastic for these changes. Our Technical Discipline Manager in APAC for Sustainable Waste Management, Chani Lokuge presented alongside Bithi Roy, Project Consultant on the life cycle assessment of organic waste management options. Chani has managed various sustainable waste management projects in New Zealand and Australia and advised clients on the alternative technology options to process organic waste.

Congratulations to all of the award winners at the Awards for Excellence, including our own Principal Consultant Samantha Iles who won the inaugural Terre Nicholson Contaminated Land Management Young Professional Award and also to Andrew Fisher at Ecogas who won the Organic Materials Award for the Ecogas Reporoa Organics Processing Facility project, which SLR continues to support Auckland Council on with review of the construction and commissioning works and trial period.

Our Sustainable Waste Management team in New Zealand led by our Auckland based Principal Consultant Joanne McGregor are supported by our international waste experts, who bring expertise in a wide range of technology types and experience in applying an ESG based life cycle assessment approach, as well as our contaminated land and planning teams in New Zealand. We believe a multi-faceted approach will be key for New Zealand to drive solutions up the waste hierarchy and focus on circular solutions to reduce both waste to landfill and biogenic emissions.

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