The WasteMINZ Awards for Excellence recognise the industry superstars who have been part of an amazing initiative or project over the past 12 months.
Thank you to everyone who has sent in a nomination!
Our judges found their jobs very challenging this year - the innovation, creativity, and passion evidenced in all the nominations this year meant it was difficult for them to mark!
The Awards for Excellence ceremony will be held on 28 May as part of our Conference 2024.
Congratulations to all of Awards for Excellence winners!
Hamilton City Council, Go Eco Waikato, Hospice Waikato, Op Shop for Breast Cancer - Thrifty Threads |
 A collaborative group of charity shops, along with Hamilton City Council, diverted 12,000kg of clothing from entering landfill, and raised $20,000 for charity. Hamilton City Council collaborated with Hospice Waikato, Op Shop for Breast Cancer, and environmental charity GoEco to deliver a three-day public pop-up op shop. The catalyst for this event was Hospice asking for help to save two 40ft containers of clothing – donated during the pandemic – from going to landfill. The event also educated the community. In the lead-up to the event the team shared tips for waste reduction, and at the event, workshops were held on clothing upcycling and capsule wardrobes made with second-hand clothes to demonstrate how you can put together great outfits from just a few pieces. The council also partnered with two local schools to run workshops about waste minimisation, with participating students having their work displayed at the event. What sets this initiative apart is the importance placed on behaviour change and education. As shoppers exited the venue, there was a gallery that highlighted the effects of fast fashion on the environment, including a visual display of how much clothing the average kiwi sends to landfill every year. To arm Hamiltonians with the right information to help with their clothing consumption, the team had stalls showing how to minimise clothing waste and shared information on the waste reduction hierarchy to further this understanding. The event was funded via a Waste Minimisation Levy, and all proceeds went directly to charity. |
Tauranga City Council - Resource Wise Programme Nearly half of Tauranga’s household waste generated ends up in landfill. This isn’t sustainable for our environment or future generations and a large-scale shift towards more sustainable behaviours is needed by the community. That’s why Tauranga City Council developed personalised and sustainable waste behaviour education and coaching via its Resource Wise Programme. This is the first council-led waste education in New Zealand for schools and businesses that features a quantifiable waste audit component, personalised reports and education, plus 1:1 support and coaching from a dedicated council Waste Officer. No two schools or businesses are the same, so the programme enables businesses and schools to quantitatively measure their current best opportunities to reduce their waste, set targets and track their progress and ultimate success through the ‘waste audit’. This, combined with personalised education and practical tools (workshops, comprehensive reports, education materials), sets the programme apart from other waste education initiatives. Since first launching the programme, the team has also encompassed circular economy principles and strengthened education around reducing waste overall, rather than focusing on only diversion. To date, programme participants have collectively diverted 1118.9 tonnes or 60% of their collective total waste from landfill. |
| Localised Limited, Zero Waste Network - Auckland's Zero Waste Hubs Auckland’s two Zero Waste Hubs, Hubs based in Tāmaki Glen Innes and Wairau Valley, promote innovative ways of delivering reuse and repair services, including the inorganics reuse service, community recycling centres, repair workshops, retail spaces, and community activation initiatives. 207 community groups, charities, and upcyclers are supported and have access to reusable material free of charge. The value of this material in potential revenue and in-kind donations is more than $250,000 to date and provides significant employment and volunteering opportunities. With a diversion rate of 98.5% the hubs have a vibrant feel that are constantly changing to meet community demands. The 2023 flood relief response highlighted the importance of the zero waste hubs to support emergency management and community initiatives. The hubs helped to provide clothing, bedding and furniture to those in need in partnership with marae, community organisations, government agencies and Auckland Council. |
Auckland Council & Community Resource Recovery Network The Auckland Council and Community Resource Recovery Network (ACCRRN) is an example of innovative partnership working. Since adopting a Resource Recovery Network Strategy in 2014, the Council has established 14 Community Recovery Centres (CRC). Through social procurement all sites are operated by community enterprises. The sites focus on reuse, recycling, and resource recovery and deliver diversion rates of 60%+ whilst creating 100+ FTE jobs. The sites also support the local economy, and 100s more jobs have been created through supporting community groups and suppliers. In 2021 ACCRRN was established to formalise the relationship between the parties as a way ensuring the CRCs thrive and for developing a governance model for the future. ACCRRN has proved very successful and could be replicated across the Country. A national Resource Recovery Network could address many of the waste issues Aotearoa is currently experiencing. |
Hawke's Bay Regional Council, Hastings District Council, supported by numerous contractors and consultants - Cyclone Gabrielle Silt, Wood and Waste Recovery Taskforce The Silt, Wood and Waste Recovery Taskforce, a joint Hawke's Bay Regional Council and Hastings District Council initiative, was established in April 2023. It operates as a service model where cyclone affected landowners log a ticket and the Taskforce (which includes a number of contractors and consultants) collects, transports and manages the flood-derived materials at a network of temporary processing and permanent disposal sites. Along with assisting landowners to reinstate their (predominantly primary production) properties, a priority for the Taskforce from the start has been segregation of waste materials, diversion from landfill and re-use/recycling as much as possible. To date, approximately 2.6 million tonnes of flood waste has been removed from more than 800 affected properties. While its core role is waste collection and management, the Taskforce has shown to be so much more than that - championing community clean-up days, providing regular educational video updates to the public, relentless dedication to lobbying for ongoing funding, and leading from the front by demonstrating to the community that even in a disaster scenario, it's still entirely possible to take a responsible and sustainable approach to waste management. |
Auckland Council & Community partners - Auckland's Food Scraps Service Rollout: Community Engagement
Auckland Council’s food scraps collection service rollout was the largest undertaken in the Southern Hemisphere, impacting over 500,000 households. So, it makes sense that the council needed to be innovative and collaborative when engaging with the community. To support the city-wide rollout, the council’s extensive community engagement utilised a partnership approach, and worked with more than 30 diverse organisations tocarry out unique and dynamic food scraps community engagement.
Creative engagement initiatives have helped inspire behaviour change across the city, contributing to the diversion of 30,000 pa tonnes of food scraps from landfill – and in a drop in refuse tonnage of up to 20% is evident in some areas!
Judges said Auckland Council adopted an approach that has shown benefits internationally - that of targeting specific groups for an intervention that affects them directly. |
Victoria Kennaugh – Beca
Vicky has achieved Certified Environmental Practitioner having worked as both regulator and consultant in the UK and NZ. Vicky is passionate about adopting new approaches to improve contaminated land investigation and assessment, such as utilising alternative technologies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of remediation processes.
One notable example is during remediation of a large former chemical plant site, Vicky utilized a Membrane Interface Probe investigation to define the extent of remediation. This approach allowed for a more comprehensive investigation than traditional soil sampling methods, while being cost-effective and delivering results more quickly.
As a senior member of the Beca contaminated land team, Vicky leads by example and uses her knowledge and experiences to create a supportive environment that allows others to grow. She seeks out areas for health and safety improvement, and demonstrates the importance of ‘taking five’ when arriving on site, challenging unsafe behaviors or expectations, or empowering the team to undertake necessary steps to mitigate risks when in challenging conditions. |
Briar Wyatt – Policy Analyst, Ministry for the Environment
Briar has been involved in sector since 2014, when she joined youth-led campaign org Plastic Diet. She spent 6 years with Auckland Council's waste team leading the development of a hazardous waste strategy, disaster waste management plan, and operational policies. Since 2021, she has been at MfE where she has lead the development of data regulations for territorial authorities and was the principal author on two chapters of the inaugural Emissions Reduction Plan.
Briar has mentored fellow young passionate people into the waste industry, including roles in the NGO and local government spaces. In addition to providing support to young people trying to make a start in waste, she works closely with highly experienced waste experts and offer alternative perspectives and visions for our waste policy and practice.
As a campaigner and President of Plastic Diet, a youth-lead movement against single use plastics, the movement successfully worked with Scott Simpson to call for a ban on microbeads in cosmetic products in New Zealand. Over her time in the waste sector, she has worked on the inorganics contract for Auckland, adopting a community-centric approach that allowed for a smaller community entity to take over the contract; planned climate action initiatives for waste for the Auckland Climate Action Plan; wrote a hazardous waste strategy for Auckland including pop-up drop off events for hard to reach areas and communities; started the development of a disaster waste management plan for Auckland using innovative new software approaches; and most recently, lead the development of regulations for additional waste information, including introducing activity source reporting for the first time in the national framework for waste data.
She is a staunch supporter of zero-waste and have big dreams for the future of waste minimisation in Aotearoa. It has been a privilege to have her dream job contributing to this vision since her teenage years, right through to now at 29 years old. |
Dan Butterfield - Kiwi Skips
Dan Butterfield is on a mission. As the founder and owner of Kiwi Skips, a leading waste management company in Southland, Dan’s story is one of passion, dedication, and a commitment to providing high-quality customer service and sustainable, innovative solutions for waste. Dan is so fiercely passionate about waste, he has even created a weekly YouTube series 'Trash Talk' and uses multiple social media platforms to offer awareness, education, and insight into the waste industry.
Where most people see waste - Dan sees opportunity. Kiwi Skips are in the process of developing Southland’s first resource recovery facilities for construction and demolition waste with much of the plant and equipment being built from recycled parts. For example, the old conveyer belt from the Queenstown luge is being repurposed as the main sorting line. Dan’s also built a glass-crusher out of an old grain crusher, to crush bottles back down to sand which can then be used for new products.
Kiwi Skips was the New Zealand Winner of the ‘Innovating for Sustainability’ category in Xero’s Beautiful Business Fund and winners of the Excellence in Trades Services Award at the 2023 Southland Business Excellence Awards. They were also highly commended in the He Tohu Manaakitanga Award at the 2023 KUMA Māori Business Awards. All testament to Dan and his team's determination and commitment to contributing nothing short of excellence to the waste industry. |
