ACT’s Environment Spokesman Simon Court says the Greens’ environmental platform contains more of the same failed policies which have led to a huge increase in waste to landfill over the past 20 years.

Mr Court is a civil and environmental engineer, and number 5 on ACT’s list, with 23 years’ experience in the private sector and local government in New Zealand and overseas.

“We’re sending 3.5 million tonnes of waste to landfill a year and the Greens’ policies will do nothing to solve that problem.

“The Greens’ new $60 per tonne landfill tax will double the cost of council waste collections, add $270 million in new taxes on households and businesses, and is unlikely to meaningfully reduce waste going to landfill.

“ACT favours waste to energy as a solution to the landfill crisis, the technology that was banned by a 2005 amendment to the Resource Management Act.

“High temperature incinerators are the preferred solution for Denmark, also a dairy exporter, and the kind of environmentally-friendly country that New Zealand should aspire to be.

“We will repeal the RMA ban on waste to energy, which is the only way to solve the landfill crisis.

“Only ACT is offering real solutions to our environmental problems.

“The Greens’ bans and taxes are simply more of the same failed policies of the past 20 years.

“The Greens are certainly making the election a contest of ideas: they’re showing just how dangerous bad ideas can be.”

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