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Mal's Blog: Kerbside really works in New Zealand, take note Wales (25.07.11)

25Jul2011

Great to visit Raglan again, apart from the Welsh connection in Monmouthshire, its such an absolutely beautiful part of the world with its scenic harbour and "middle earth, hobbit-town" hinterland. Unfortunately my good friends Liz and Rick were away at Waiheke island because it is the start of the school holidays but we were met enthusiastically and warmly by Paul and Simon, who had roped Arron into the fray to interview both Gerry Gillespie and I as we were "passing" for a Zero Waste documentary film they are making.

Now I don't want to sound dozey, but dozey I must have been on previous visits because whilst I listened to all the things that Xtreme Waste had been getting up to on previous visits - the last only two years ago - I hadn't really HEARD their impressive statistics. 
 
Xtreme Waste does the kerbside collections in Raglan and effectively runs the transfer station - preventing / diverting all sorts of waste from landfill (not just household). 
 
Their annual report for 2009/10 posts a 72% diversion rate. 28% going to landfill.
  • In 2009/10 they earned NZ$1,065,983 and spent NZ$1,011,652 leaving them an operating surplus of NZ$54,331 with which to buy a new truck for the business run - their existing one is falling apart
  • They receive 16% of their income from what is termed Capital (1%) or operating (15%) largely for education work - the rest of their income comes from sales of products and services (45%) or earnings from contracts (35%) with 4% labelled "other income".
  • The company spends just over half of its income on staff wages (no one is on minimum wage and there is a queue of young people especially that want to work at Xtreme waste) employing 22 FTE local people ensuring that the NZ$1 million circulates and recirculates through the Raglan local economy.
If this Xtreme waste example were extrapolated to one of the Welsh Local Authorities - and there is just no reason why it shouldn't be - with the average 50,000 households that exists in Wales (and the higher tonnages of materials that Welsh Households discard 850kgs per annum per household as compared to 676kgs per household in New Zealand) we could expect to multiply Xtreme Waste's figures by 30 or more per authority.
 
So taking 30 to be conservative multiplier each local authority area (on average) could expect to earn $NZ30 million or about £15 million per annum and use that money to employ 600 FTE well paid staff reducing waste to landfill by over 70% - Wales National Target for 2025.
 
For Wales this indicates a prospect of over 12,000 jobs in re-use and recycling and an expected earned income in this Social Enterprise development of over £300 million per annum - and remember we are being conservative.
 
So what are we waiting for?
 
Still looking for a MRF that actually works - and not finding one.
 
Off to Malaysia at the end of the week to launch Zero Waste Malaysia - watch this space............
 
Mal
 
 
Follow Mal on Twitter @MalCylch1