John MacDonald: Don't let Canterbury become the nation's dumping ground

How would you feel about rubbish from all over New Zealand and maybe even overseas being dumped in the South Island? 

That’s what could be happening with this new waste-to-energy plant that is planned for South Canterbury. And I would be dead against it. 

Fine, if burning rubbish to create energy is a good thing and can be done without munting the environment, go for it. But there’s no way I would be wanting rubbish from the North Island and overseas being brought here. 

Why? Well, for starters, I don’t want the Canterbury region to be the rest of the country, and the world’s dumping ground. There are enough stories already about countries which accept our recycling waste saying ‘stop, no more’. 

I’ve got other reasons too, which I’ll get to.  

So Glenavy —on State Highway One, not far from Waimate— that’s the site where an outfit, with a majority shareholder from China, wants to build this plant which would burn rubbish in a giant furnace and convert it to energy. 

These plants are in other countries around the world, and they’re seen as a good alternative to landfill rubbish dumps. Instead of sticking rubbish in the ground, you burn it up and make power. 

How they work is the burning of the rubbish creates steam which runs the turbines to make power, and whenever power comes up for discussion, waste-to-energy plants pretty much always gets a mention because some people see them as a better option than some of the other electricity generation alternatives that get talked about, such as using ocean currents. 

What’s happened though is a few months back, the Overseas Investment Office provided advice to the Government on the Chinese company wanting to buy dairy farmland at Glenavy to put the processing plant on. 

In that advice, which was prepared for Finance Minister Nicola Willis, officials say if the plant goes ahead, it should only accept rubbish from within the South Island. 

This was advice from the Overseas Investment Office, which officials put together after getting input from Health NZ, the Ministry for the Environment, the Security Intelligence Service and Foreign Affairs and Trade. 

So, they said in their report that “feedstock” for the plant —which is the technical term for the rubbish used to run the furnace— should only be sourced from within the South Island. 

The reason the report went to the Finance Minister was that, primarily, it was her job to decide whether the purchase of the land by this largely foreign-owned company would be against New Zealand’s national interest.  

And, nine days after receiving the advice, she decided that it wouldn’t, and that the Government was comfortable with the Chinese company buying the land. 

But, in the process she overrode the advice from officials that the plant only be allowed to truck-in rubbish from within the South Island. Instead, she decided that it should be left to the resource consent process to decide that. And, as far as I’m concerned, that could be bad news for the South Island. 

Because, aside from the fact that I don’t want Canterbury becoming a dumping ground for the rest of New Zealand and other countries, can you imagine the truck movements between Christchurch and Glenavy that would be required on that goat track of a road that we call State Highway One? 

These trucks would either come from Picton or they’d go from Lyttelton. Can you imagine the extra amount of traffic? 

So the idea of this plant using rubbish from anywhere other than the South Island gets a big “no” from me. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
How would you feel about rubbish from all over New
Zealand and maybe even from overseas. How would you feel
about that rubbish being dumped in the South Island. How
would you feel about it being dumped in Canterbury? And
maybe using the word dumped could be slightly unfair, but
that's effectively what could be happening with this new waste

(00:37):
to energy plant that is planned for South Canterbury. I'll
tell you what. I would be dead against rubbish being
dumped from around New Zealand and overseas. I mean fine,
if burning rubbish to create energy is a good thing
and can be done without munting the environment, then go
for it. But there's no way I would be wanting

(00:59):
rubbish from North Ireland, from the North Island, even from
overseas being brought here. It would have to be limited
to rubbish from the South Island. I'll explain more or
for starters. I don't want the Canterbury region to be
the rest of the country and the world's dumping ground.
There are enough stories already about countries which accept our

(01:22):
recycling waste saying stop no more, that's enough, Stop pull
the pin. I've got other reasons to which I'll get to,
but let me explain the background to what's happened. So
Glen Navy which is on State Highway, not far it's
on the coast, not far from Waimati. You know where
it is. That's the site. We're an outfit worth a

(01:43):
majority shareholder from China wants to build this plant which
would burn rubbish in a giant furnace and convert it
to energy. These plants there are in other countries around
the world and they're seen as a decent alternative to
land fill rubbish dumps because instead of sticking the rubbish
in the ground, you burn it make power. And how
they work as the burning of the rubbish creates steam

(02:06):
which runs the turbines to make the power. And whenever
power comes up for discussion on the show, pretty much
waste to energy plants come up for discussion or get
a mention because some people see them as a better
option than some of the other electricity generation alternatives that
get talked about or bandied around, such as wind and

(02:28):
using ocean currents. But what's happened though, and this is
where I get to the question today about how you
would feel about rubbish from the North Island and other
countries being dumped here. There's a few months back the
Overseas Investment Office provided advice to the government on the
matter of the Chinese company or the majority owner Chinese company,

(02:50):
wanting to buy dairy farmland at Glar Navy to put
the processing plant on, so they would subdivide a dairy
farm and get the land. And in that advice, which
was prepared for Finance Minister Nikola Willis, officials say, well,
in fact that this stronger than that they advise or
they recommend that if this plant goes ahead, it should

(03:11):
only accept rubbish from within the South Island. And this
was advice from the Overseas Investment Office, which officials put
together after getting input from other agencies such as Health
New Zealand, Ministry for the Environment, the Security Intelligence Service
and Foreign Affairs and Trade. So they said in their report,
and this report was done because it was all about
the purchase by a foreign company of land in New Zealand.

(03:36):
And they said in their report that feed stock for
the plant, Now what that is the technical term for
the rubbish that's used to burn the furnaces in these places.
They said in their report that the plant should only
be allowed to use rubbish from within the South Island.
And the reason the report went to the Finance Minister
was that primarily it was her job to decide whether
the purchase of the land by this largely foreign owned

(03:59):
company would be against New Zealand's national interest. That's why
she received and nine days after receiving that advice she
decided that now it wouldn't be against our national interest
and that the government was comfortable with the Chinese company
buying the land, so Press Press go. But in the
process she overrode that advice from the officials that the

(04:20):
plant only be allowed to truck in rubbish from within
the South Island. Instead, she decided that it should be
left to the resource consent process to decide whether there
should be any restrictions on where the plant could get
the rubbish to burn to make the power from, you know,
whether there should be any limitations or restrictions. And as

(04:41):
far as I'm concerned, that could be very bad news
for the South Island because, aside from the fact that
I don't want Canterbury becoming a dumping ground, for the
rest of New Zealand and for other countries aside from that.
Can you imagine the truck movements between christ Church angler
Navy that would be required if we weren't just bringing

(05:02):
in rubbish from around the South Island. Can I measure
the number of truck movements on that goat track of
a road that we call State Highway one and these
trucks they'd either be coming from Picton or they would
go from Littleton. Can you imagine the traffic. So the
idea of this plant using rubbish from anywhere other than
the South Island gets a big no from me. It

(05:24):
didn't get a big no from the Finance Minister, but
it gets a big no from me.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
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or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.