In July 2019, Nick Robertson and Merewyn Groom completed a report on whether incineration was a waste disposal option for New Zealand.
The report acknowledged that the introduction of waste-to-energy (W-t-E) could affect New Zealand’s efforts to move to a circular economy at the time being considered by The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) to transition New Zealand toward reducing waste and associated pollutants, protect and restore natural capital, and help address issues including climate change and water quality.
The report stated, “By creating an alternative to landfills, WtE could affect efforts to reduce the creation of waste, including reuse, recycling, and reprocessing. Despite being promoted by some as renewable energy or recycling, the European Commission has mapped various WtE methods against the waste hierarchy and found that this is not the case.”