Organic Feasibility Study starting this week
The Feasibility Study on Organic waste in the Hamilton CBD is starting this week, supported by funding from WEL Energy Trust and Hamilton City Council’s Envirofund. Nandor Tanczos is undertaking the project for the Waikato Environment Centre to establish the best option to reduce organic waste going to landfill, by finding productive uses for it, educating the community about reducing the amount of organics in landfill, as well as looking at ways of reducing the initial waste in cafes and restaurants.
Organics are a problem in landfill as they produce methane during the decomposition process, which is a greenhouse gas. Transporting organics to landfill also increases carbon use, and landfills reach their capacity sooner.
The Environment Centre is fortunate to have someone of Nandor’s calibre to take on this role. Nandor, a former member of the Waste Advisory Board, is committed to the principle of zero waste, and understands the practical complexities of waste minimisation, having introduced the Waste Minimisation Act to Parliament in 2006. Since then Nandor has been working with a variety of community organisations around civic and community engagement.
Nandor will be working with food outlets to assess the average quantities being produced, what avenues for disposal are available at present, looking at the barriers for outlets to responsible disposal of organics, and consulting with a wide range of partners and assessing possible business opportunities for commercial enterprises.
Whilst there are a number of organic processing businesses already operating either taking just garden waste, or a mixture of food and green waste, there are some exciting new processes being researched currently, so it is going to be interesting to see the results of this study in a few months’ time.
