Nic Quilty: WasteMINZ CEO on the new data revealing Kiwi households waste $1500 worth of food per year

According to a new report by NZIER, Kiwi households are wasting thousands worth of food every year.

New Zealanders waste $1500 worth of food annually, and new data shows the country is among one of the highest producers of general waste in the OECD - and that it has some of the lowest material productivity in the world.

WasteMINZ CEO Nic Quilty says Kiwis don't treat waste as a resource - and it's a problem.

"When you buy something, think about how long you're going to use it for, is it good quality and is it going to end up in a landfill? We don't want these things ending up in landfill, we want them to continually remain in our economy for as long as possible."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather Do for ZL nine two ninety two.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I would love to hear your experience, if you've got
a different one or if that is your experience. As
well as standard text fees apply obviously. Now listen, let's
talk about rubbish. Okay, kere Wee households are wasting about
fifteen hundred dollars worth of food every single year. This
is according to a new report by the ends at Ier.
And it's not just food that we're wasting. New Zealand
is amongst the highest producers of general waste in the OECD,

(00:24):
and we also have some of the lowest material productivity
in the world. In other words, we're just basically producing
lots and doing very little with it. Nick Quilty is
the CEO of Wasteman's.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hey Nick, Hi, Hi here they how are you.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm very well, thank you. Here's a lot of waste day.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Look it is, and we're just spending so much more
on rubbish than we're used to. It's a real problem
in New Zealand. I mean we don't know we know
what local authorities how it's affecting them. So the spend
on their waste and refuse services grew forty five to
forty seven percent between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty three,

(00:58):
So in twenty twenty three they spend six hundred and
twenty nine million. So yeah, it's not good. And then
you look at a legal dumping. I'm not sure if
you I'm not sure where you live, but if you
drive around Auckland, it's a real problem. And if you
look at Auckland Council it's costing rate players two point
six million annually, and for other councils around the country
the cost ranges from one hundred and twenty thousand to

(01:20):
two hundred and fifty thousand a year.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
What should we do with this stuff? What should we
do about it?

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Oh? Look, I think illegal dumping. I mean, obviously the
councils are doing as much as they possibly can, they're
finding people. But I think a lot of people are
legally dump because they don't know what else to do
with their rubbish or they've just got too much of it.
But which is rather that people actually did the right thing,
took them to you know, secondhand shops, put them out

(01:45):
in their appropriate receptacles that go out on kurd side.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, but what do we do?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
But what do we do about it as society because
I feel like the problem isn't so much where well
it was.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Obviously that is a problem. We're putting the rubbish, but
just the fact that we throw so we just have
a culture. It's just in our minds. Isn't it just
to throw things away?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I think? I think the biggest problem is we don't
treat waste as a resource, and it's actually a resource.
So actually when you buy something, think about how long
you're going to use it for? Is it good, good quality?
Is it going to end up in landfall? Because we
don't want these things indo govern landfall. We want them
to continually remain in our economy for as long as possible,

(02:23):
before and before they're disposed of, if at all.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
But how do you do that, Nick, Because okay, let's
just say, let me think of an example at my house. Okay,
so we've got I don't know, let's say a cot
or something, and we don't want this cot anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
I have tried.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
This is an actual example. I had a cot and
I tried to take it a cot mattress and I
try to take it to the I try to put
it out on the Facebook page. Whoever wants it can
have it. I tried to take it down to the
local charity. They didn't want it. In the end it
went into landfall. I mean, how do you get around
this stuff?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Readiful? Can I wonder if I wonder if you're I'm
just making some assumptions here, but I don't know why
someone wouldn't want your court. The only reason they might
not want it is maybe it was maybe it was
painted with lead painted base and you know.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
It was just the mattress. It was just the mattress.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh, just the mattress. Oh I see, yeah, yeah, Look,
it is a real problem. And I think part of
it is that we are just a society that is
a consumer of society, and we don't treat the we
don't treat goods with the respect that they deserve. And
so where we are a throwaway society and there is
a certain portion of us as people that want to

(03:35):
do the right thing. And if we know how to
do the right thing, and we can go into a
council website and put mattress, how do I get how
do I dispose of this? How do I recite this?
What do I do? That's the easy thing, But then
you get a proportion of the society that won't do that,
and we'll just dump it someone.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
So maybe for those I mean, you know, the people
who are going to go do fly tipping, I mean
I think they are absolutely morons and we should just
write them off. There are always going to be people
like that in the world. But for the rest of
us who want to do the right thing, I feel
like the problem, I feel like the obstacle here is
that it's just not simple, and eventually you try a
few times and then you give up, and then you
just never try again. But you think, Jesu, that was
far too hard. So almost we need a structure there

(04:12):
where there's a system, right, Yeah, Well, look.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
We need consistency throughout the country, and we need more
infrastructure so that we can actually recycle and recover our
goods in New Zealand instead of having to send things overseas.
That's one of our biggest problems. And what we would
like to see is we would like to see clear
national direction from government from government on what infrastructure they

(04:36):
would like to see and where it should be. And
we would like to see prioritization of the waste industry
from the government. And we would love to also see
an environment minister within cabinet instead of outside cabinet, because
we just don't think they have enough sway and influence
being outside cabinet.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Nick, thank you so much, really appreciate your time. That's
Nick Quilty, the CEO of Wasteman's.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
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