Fresh ideas wanted to help reduce waste
A $500,000 grant scheme to foster fresh ideas and support projects to help reduce waste going to landfills in the Auckland region will be launched in April.
The waste minimisation and innovation fund opens on April 1 for applications from community groups, businesses, iwi and Maori organisations and educational institutions with great ideas and existing projects for waste reduction and minimisation.
The fund is one of the first actions to emerge from Auckland Council’s waste management and minimisation plan, adopted in June 2012, which has an aspirational goal of zero waste by 2040.
‘‘This new fund is exciting because it is part of a whole new way of doing things,’’ says councillor Noelene Raffills, who led the hearings process.
‘‘We need to get our waste sorted and this grants scheme will bring forth a whole raft of fresh initiatives and businesses to help us achieve our goal of making Auckland the world’s most liveable city.’’
The fund will have an annual pool of $500,000 to disburse through two funding rounds.
The first round opens on April 1 and closes on April 30. The second round will be in October.
Projects will fall into three main categories: Small grants ($250 to $5000), medium grants ($5001 to $25,000) and large grants (over $25,000).
A project can receive up to 50 per cent of its cost from the fund, with sources of additional funding and support to be secured by the applicant.
The fund can support a broad range of projects to reduce waste going to landfills, from the development of feasibility studies, business cases and surveys, through to infrastructure design and development, equipment and plant, pilot programmes and workshops.
Project owners will need to demonstrate how their initiatives incorporate the key strategies and principles of the waste management and minimisation plan.
The key areas of focus are resource recovery, commercial waste, organic waste and community and behaviour change.