This year, the council would establish a waste audit service, where officers would audit the waste produced by businesses and offer advice about reducing waste and diverting it from the landfill, Mr Clarke said.
"Waste minimisation is normally down the bottom of the priority for any business — and it doesn’t take much to make a difference," he said.
"It’s all about education — the challenge is changing behaviour."
Under the Waste Minimisation Act, the council had a statutory responsibility to encourage waste minimisation and decrease waste disposal.
As part of its push for recycling and diversion, the council had hired Lucianne White as its new waste minimisation officer last year.
It was also reviewing its waste minimisation and management plan.
As part of that review, the council would complete an audit of Waste Management NZ Limited’s transfer station in Oamaru’s North End, where most of the town’s waste was went.
A council staff member would spend a week on site completing the "solid waste analysis protocol", documenting and categorising every piece of waste.
"Then we can look at that and analyse what we can potentially divert and how much recycling is going into the rubbish — that’s going to be a really interesting process."
The audit would allow the council to make an assessment of the make-up of the district’s waste.
At present, waste collection services were provided by three private companies: Waste Co, Awamoa Bins & Skips and Waste Management.
Waste Co was contracted by the council to run the transfer stations in Omarama, Otematata, Kurow and Hampden, processing about 250,000tonnes of recycling. It also managed the council’s recycling drop-off points in Papakaio, Herbert, and Enfield.
Though the Oamaru landfill closed in 2017, the council had a landfill in Palmerston which could take 60tonnes-100tonnes of local waste per year, Mr Clarke said.
He understood the waste collected by Waste Management and Waste Co was consolidated and sent down to the AB Lime landfill in Southland, which could take an unlimited amount of waste each year.
The three commercial operators took their recycling to the Waitaki Resource Recovery Park.
After the audit, the council would examine its own services and their effectiveness, Mr Clarke said.
