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New Zealand Opens Consultation on Product Stewardship Priorities

Today New Zealand’s Minister for the Environment, the Hon Amy Adams MP, released a discussion paper on potential prioritisation for product stewardship under New Zealand’s Waste Minimisation Act 2008 (WMA). The Minister’s media release is available here.

The discussion paper released today raises the possibility and rationale for designating some or all of the following four products as priority products under the WMA:

• electrical and electronic equipment (commonly referred to as e-waste or WEEE)
• tyres
• agricultural chemicals and farm plastics
• refrigerants and other synthetic greenhouse gases.

Consultation will be open until 2 July 2014. Detail on consultation workshops in NZ is available here. Following the consultation, the costs and benefits of a range of options and additional stakeholder input will be considered.

New Zealand’s focus has traditionally been on voluntary product stewardship approaches, and 11 voluntary product stewardship schemes have been accredited to date. An overview of the accredited schemes in included in the discussion paper.

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