Beneficial use of Organic Materials on Productive Land

Guidelines for beneficially reusing organic materials on productive land are under development. The guidelines will supersede 2003 Guidelines for the Safe Application of Biosolids to Land and include additional organic material such as animal manures, and other agricultural wastes, which also contain pathogens and contaminants. Water New Zealand, WasteMINZ, the Centre for Integrated Biowaste Research (CIBR) and the New Zealand Land Treatment Collective (NZLTC) together with the ministries of Environment, Health and primary Industries are collaborating on their delivery.

Nick Walmsley ran five regional meetings to discuss a draft during February 2017, which over 100 people attended. Meeting notes are available here. Twenty-three submissions from 36 individuals and organisations were subsequently received. The project Steering Group held a meeting to consider these submissions on 27 April 2017 and formulated a programme to update the draft . The Steering Group meeting notes and full copies of the submissions can be viewedhere.

The updated draft documents are now available for further public comment here. Submissions on this second draft will close at 5pm Friday, 9 March 2018. It is intended that the guidelines will be published by mid 2018. There will be no regional meetings to cover the second draft guidelines. Submissions should be emailed to nick.walmsley@waternz.org.nz