Achieving zero waste to landfill? Neoliberal processes and public-private relations in Auckland

Abstract

Auckland Council is aiming for New Zealand’s largest and fastest growing urban area to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2040. Despite the enactment of the Waste Minimisation Act in 2008, the volume of waste reaching Auckland’s landfills has increased in the past decade. Council’s waste management and minimisation plan prioritises the diversion of waste from landfill and strategies such as kerbside organic waste collections are proposed as solutions to Auckland’s growing waste problem. Meanwhile, the private sector offers a range of waste products and services at a cost to the waste conscious consumer. This raises questions about the political nature of waste and the relations between Council and the private sector in Auckland’s waste market. My thesis examines these relations and the political economic processes that continuously shape the institutions and practices that govern waste in real life. Auckland has emerged as the neoliberal capital of New Zealand largely constituted by targeted privatisation of infrastructure assets and its spearhead role in international economic competitiveness. I use a critical discourse analysis to produce a critical history, or genealogy, of relations between Council and the private sector through the lens of waste management. The lens focuses on the governance of waste in the Auckland region through analysis of key public policy and planning documents. It aims to problematise the present by revealing the relations of power that it depends on and the processes that have brought it about. The thesis seeks to answer the question: to what extent do relations between Council and the private sector provide opportunities and challenges to achieving the goal of zero waste to landfill? The analysis suggests that neoliberal processes including marketisation, privatisation and individualisation are evident in the governance of waste in Auckland. These processes create and perpetuate a market-friendly framework that legitimises the mode of waste disposal, essentialises the private sector’s role in governance and puts the onus on the consumer to make better waste choices. It is argued that the power and influence of the private sector in the governance of Auckland’s waste supports business as usual and challenges the achievement Council’s zero waste vision.