Among the deluge of 149 proposals on the government’s fast track list, more than a few stand out with a long and controversial history that have failed to gain Resource Management Act (RMA) consents and faced sustained public opposition. The proposal to build the first ‘waste-to-energy’ incineration factory in Aotearoa is a case in point.
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The company that is proposing to spend $350 million to build it in Glenavy near Waimate, South Canterbury, is called South Island Resource Recovery Limited (SIRRL). It is 60 per cent owned by China Tianying Inc. and one of its subsidiary companies (EUZY), and 40 per cent by Renew Energy Ltd.
SIRRL says it aims to burn up to 350,000 tonnes of mixed waste a year there using diesel as a ‘feeder fuel’. For each tonne of mixed waste burned, a waste incinerator releases up to 1.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Over the 35 years of a resource consent, that’s up to 20.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is a huge amount of carbon that would go directly into the atmosphere.
The inconvenient truth for SIRRL is that waste incineration causes climate change. A new report published by BBC News shows that burning rubbish is now the UK’s dirtiest form of power and how waste-to-energy incineration produces the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions for each unit of electricity as burning coal. It also produces more carbon dioxide than natural-gas fired or oil-fired energy generation, which shows that SIRRL’s claim it is a form of renewable energy is simply not true.
Household mixed waste includes items such as plastics, tetra packs, PVC, disposable nappies, paints, solvents and batteries which all contain persistent toxic chemicals and/or heavy metals. Burning mixed waste produces toxic air pollution that contains acid gases, toxic heavy metals (mercury, lead, cadmium), toxic persistent pollutants (dioxins, furans, PFAS), and toxic smoke particulates (PM10, PM2.5).
As Zero Waste Network Aotearoa points out, when these are breathed in, they can enter and accumulate in our bloodstream and body organs, including lungs, heart and brain. These pollutants can cause illness and death from respiratory diseases (asthma and other lung diseases), strokes, cancers, heart diseases, and heart attacks. It also creates a mountain of toxic bottom ash that still requires disposal to a landfill.
Waste incineration is not an efficient way to generate electricity
SIRRL says its proposed factory will generate only up to 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity, which is a tiny 0.3 per cent fraction of the country’s 9,448 MW of installed electricity capacity. The 12-turbine Mahinerangi wind farm built in Otago in 2011 produces 36 MW and cost NZ$75 million to build, only about 20 per cent of the $350 million price tag for SIRRL’s proposed waste incineration factory.
Waste incineration also undermines efforts to reduce waste and implement zero waste strategies because it locks in long-term waste supply contracts to continually ‘feed the beast’. Zero waste strategies and composting employ more people and are more sustainable. Replacing the raw materials burned is also more costly than retrieving and re-using them such as recycling the paper, cardboard, glass, wood and metals contained in the waste stream. Composting organic materials such as food scraps and garden clippings also reduces waste and produces compost. For every job that a waste incinerator creates, recycling centres create 36 jobs, and re-use activities create 296 jobs.
Waste incinerators also need fossil fuels to burn mixed waste because it is often wet and much of it is not readily combustible. In fact, it would be less polluting and more efficient to simply burn the diesel ‘feeder fuel’ directly to generate electricity, but that would fuel more climate change so it is cheaper, cleaner and safer to generate electricity from genuine renewables such as wind, solar or geothermal energy.
China Tianying Inc. is an incineration giant
Many Kiwis probably haven’t heard of China Tianying Inc, the Chinese-owned waste incineration giant that is reportedly bankrolling the proposed factory.
China Tianying Inc reportedly had total assets valued at ¥26 billion Chinese Yuan (NZ$6 billion) in 2022. It is a member of the state-approved official China International Chamber of Commerce for the Private Sector (CICCPS) and the company’s President, Debiao Cao, is a Vice President of the CICCPS.
According to this article published in North & South Magazine, “[NZ] Government sources claim China Tianying Inc is partly owned by the Chinese government. When I ask Taylor [of SIRRL] about what the links to the Chinese government are, he says he doesn’t know. “They’re a large public company, so I’m not sure whether they’re linked.” He then asks his PR spokesperson to respond. She says most large Chinese companies are partly owned by the Chinese government.”
China Tianying Inc is one of many Chinese companies that benefit from the Chinese government subsidising the waste to energy incineration industry in China via a feed-in tariff which guarantees an above-market value price is paid for electricity produced by that industry.
The other shareholder in SIRRL is Renew Energy Ltd. It registered as a company in Aotearoa in June 2016 with the aim of converting the old coal-fired cement factory in Buller to burn waste to generate electricity using coal as the feeder fuel. It had the public support of Buller Mayor Gary Howard and Development West Coast, and could have sourced the coal from a local West Coast coal mine, such as Stockton. Nelson-based fishing company Talley’s and Wellington-based Bathurst Resources bought that mine from Solid Energy in 2016.
One of Renew Energy’s directors at that time was Kevin Stratful. He was contracted to the West Coast Regional Council and Development West Coast to promote economic development in the region. In July 2016 the National-led coalition government gave the company $50,000 via NZ Trade and Enterprise towards a feasibility study which was matched by Development West Coast with another $50,000 (but it was never published due to ‘commercial confidentiality’).
It was later revealed that Kevin Stratful had promoted the proposed waste incineration factory using his work emails. He also advised Buller District Council on how to avoid official information requests. Although he denied there was a conflict of interest, he later resigned from his council roles.
Shane Jones throwing money around like the drug lord Pablo Escobar
Enter Shane Jones, who was elected as a New Zealand First List MP in October 2017. A vocal proponent of the fossil fuels sector, he had previously received campaign donations from Talley’s, both when he was a Labour MP and later when he joined NZ First and campaigned (unsuccessfully) as its Whangarei electorate candidate.
Talley’s also has a history of donating to the NZ First Foundation. The company and its Managing Director Sir Peter Talley donated nearly $27,000 to the NZ First Foundation, which bankrolled the NZ First Party.
In February 2018, as Minister for Regional Economic Development, Mr Jones announced $350,000 from the Provincial Growth Fund for a new feasibility study, just two days after Ministry for the Environment experts had advised the proposal did not stack up economically or environmentally.
Then five days later Mr Jones put the promised $350,000 grant on hold after it was announced that Renew Energy Ltd’s then chief executive, Gerard Gallagher, was under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. That found he had engaged in “serious misconduct by trying to earn fees for property sales and other services while working for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority”. Mr Gallagher was subsequently convicted in 2023 for the corrupt use of official information and the $350,000 grant was withdrawn.
At the time, RNZ reported comments by National’s economic development spokesman Paul Goldsmith that described how, “… Mr Jones’ cavalier attitude to public money was disturbing, accusing him of throwing money around like the drug lord Pablo Escobar. “It’s a sad indictment of the way that Mr Jones is going about the Provincial Growth Fund – there’s no clear process that we can see from the outside, it’s slap-dash, and they’re making mistakes that they shouldn’t be making.”
Rosie Mercer, who was a Provincial Growth Fund advisory panel member at the time, was appointed in April 2024 to the advisory group that makes recommendations to Shane Jones, Chris Bishop and Simeon Brown on the proposals to be included in the Fast Track Approvals Bill.
After Mr Gallagher resigned his position and sold his shares, the remaining Renew Energy Ltd directors reportedly sought to secure new funding in China. Then in May 2018, China Tianying Inc reportedly pledged $300 million for a waste-to-energy factory.
A paid trip to Shanghai waste to energy incineration factory
An in-depth article published by Stuff in 2019 reported that Buller Mayor Gary Howard had joined Renew Energy Ltd representatives Hugh Grey and David McGregor on a visit to China Tianying Inc’s waste to energy incineration factory in Hai’an near Shanghai in May 2018 where they signed a secret deal with the company. According to the article in North & South, Renew Energy Ltd paid for Mr Howard to travel to China.
According to the article, the $300m deal between Renew Energy Ltd and China Tianying Inc was signed by Mr Howard without the approval of Buller District Council. Emails subsequently released also showed that Renew Energy Ltd directors had urged Mr Howard to keep information from the public and the extent of Mr Howard’s involvement. In addition, Mr Howard reportedly helped lobby government ministers including Shane Jones to support the proposed factory. Mr Howard was also reportedly involved in the details of discussions about the siting of the factory and the storage of waste despite not having a formal mandate from the council or the public to do so.
The document reportedly said the council would, “supply water, build a road to the plant, own the land and lease it back to the company and included costs and fees, which have been redacted. It also said the council would supply a landfill for the fly ash (toxic waste) which the plant would produce. None of these details were ever considered by the full council.”
A year later a vote of no confidence in Mr Howard was supported by an overwhelming majority of Buller district councillors. After the vote, Stuff reported, “There will be no West Coast plant and Howard has said he will not seek re-election”.
Then Renew Energy Ltd came up with a new proposal to build its waste incineration factory next to Westland Milk Products’ factory in Hokitika. The Grey and Westland mayors announced they were keen to host it, but after the new proposal sparked strong public opposition, including from local community group ‘Why Waste Westland’, that proposal soon evaporated.
In March 2019, Renew Energy Ltd reportedly said it would “press ahead with plans to build a new plant, but it won’t be on the West Coast.”
South Island Resource Recovery Ltd (SIRRL) and China Tianying Inc.
SIRRL filed a new NZ company registration in March 2021. The directors are currently listed as China Tianying Inc President Debiao Cao, former Vice President Changguang Song, Europe ZhongYing General Manager Herman Sioen, Paul Taylor and Kevin Stratful.
Since then, promotion of the proposal has been fronted by SIRRL Director Paul Taylor, who is also the majority shareholder in Renew Energy Ltd and owns a farming property near Ashburton. Renew Energy Ltd is owned by a variety of 13 companies and individual shareholders from around Aotearoa plus one in Dubai (Christopher Moniz). Mr Taylor has the largest share (19%), followed by Robert Grey (14%), Hardy Investments Ltd (13.8%) and Leonard Grey/Stallard Law (Grey Island View) Ltd/Kathryn Grey (8%). Many of them are Nelson-based and Wellington-based.
In September 2021, SIRRL issued a press release announcing it planned to build a new $350 million waste to energy incineration factory at a farmland site in Glenavy, between Oamaru and Timaru.
According to the article published in North & South, the same basic partners were involved. Renew Energy Ltd is a 40 per cent shareholder of SIRRL, while China Tianying Inc owns 41 per cent of the company, and its subsidiary, Europe ZhongYing (EUZY), owns 19 per cent. Many of the same key people were also involved. Gerald Gallagher worked as a contractor for SIRRL until late 2022, and Kevin Stratful and Paul Taylor are both directors of SIRRL, as well as China Tianying Inc President Debiao Cao.
The plan was to buy land in Glenavy, get long-term resource consents to build and operate the factory, arrange waste disposal contracts and then once the factory was built, truck in the waste from around the South Island, possibly from further north too, and start burning it.
A local community group, ‘Why Waste Waimate’ (WWW), soon set up in opposition which joined the nationwide ‘Regeneration not Incineration’ campaign coordinated by Zero Waste Network Aotearoa (ZWNA). The proposal is also opposed by Para Kore, a Māori not-for-profit organisation that advocates for zero carbon, zero waste whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori, and Waimate Doctors, an informal group of local doctors set up to inform the Waimate community about the health issues raised by the proposed factory.
Why Waste Waimate points out the factory would also need to burn in excess of 100,000 litres of diesel per day as a feeder fuel to burn the mixed waste and would use 2.5 million litres of fresh water per day for cooling.
SIRRL subsequently applied to the Canterbury Regional Council (ECan) and Waimate District Council (WDC) for resource consents in September 2022.
Ministerial call-in
Given the controversial history of the proposal and well-known negative impacts of waste incineration on the climate, human health and zero waste strategies, eNGOs and community groups including WWW, ZWNA and Para Kore requested that Minister for the Environment David Parker call-in the company’s application under the RMA in October 2022 on the grounds that it was of national significance, based on a new technology, and had caused widespread public concern.
In June 2023, ECan and WDC also requested that the Minister call-in the SIRRL application as a matter of national significance. Subsequent advice from the NZ Environmental Protection Authority also recommended a ministerial call-in.
In August 2023, the Minister responded by initiating a call-in, shortly before the general election. That process would have meant the public was able to make submissions on the application to a board of inquiry appointed by the Minister.
Labour lost the October election and a coalition of National, ACT and NZ First eventually took office in late 2023, but the call-in process initiated by Mr Parker did not proceed to public hearings. Instead, the Luxon-led coalition sat on the call-in decision until 11 October 2024, when it announced it had put the application on its controversial fast track list.
On 9 October the Otago Daily Times quoted Waimate Deputy Mayor Sharyn Cain as saying, “If the Fast-track Approvals Bill goes through unchanged and that provision is in there … that will basically mean council will have 10 days to have some say [but] the public will not and there’s not a lot we can do about it. We feel horrific at council because the point of calling it in and going through the environmental court was that our community would get a chance to submit and [have their] say. To me it’s just not right. I am vehemently opposed to taking away the public’s ability to submit on something of this nature, because it’s not fair.”
Today, RNZ reports that most members of the fast track advisory group were proposed by ministers and political parties, rather than government agencies.
Greenpeace campaigner Juressa Lee (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Rarotonga) says the advisory group is loaded with industry interests, “It’s a clear case of regulatory capture. An advisory panel made entirely of industry representatives means that the whole process appears to be riddled with conflict of interest and wide open to allegations of corruption.”
OIO and SIS warnings
As the relevant Minister, Finance Minister Nicola Willis had to decide in February 2024 whether the company’s acquisition of 15 hectares of farmland at Glenavy near Waimate as a site for its planned waste incineration factory was contrary to the national interest.
Newsroom reported that officials from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) sent a report to the Minister on 16 February. Nine days later, the Minister decided the property purchase was not contrary to the national interest. The Minister also over-ruled the OIO’s advice that any incinerator should be limited to burning waste only from the South Island, which means the company could import and burn mixed waste from the North Island and possibly from overseas. Both of her decisions effectively ignored the health and environmental effects of waste incineration and made it easier for the company to proceed with its proposal.
The OIO report also warned the Minister that, “A former China Tianying Inc shareholder and executive was associated with firms sanctioned by the United States … tech investor Wang Dong, a former China Tianying president – who was at the centre of a Chinese programme which sent a spy balloon over the US in 2022.”
Then last week, Security Intelligence Service (SIS) Director-General of Security, Andrew Hampton, warned participants in a Local Government New Zealand webinar about “foreign interests” wanting to gain influence over valuable strategic resources and critical national infrastructure, and having an interest in exerting influence over local and central government.
Incineration fast track to offshore control
Throughout the public debate on the government’s controversial Fast Track Approvals Bill this year, the loudest public voice for it within the government has been NZ First Deputy Leader Shane Jones. His positioning as a bullish cheerleader for big coal, oil and gas is well documented.
Like his current political party, he claims to be a champion of NZ economic sovereignty. But how does it promote NZ economic sovereignty to give a company that is reportedly part-owned by the Chinese government an insider’s chance to gain control of a sizeable portion of the NZ waste ‘market’ and a foothold in the strategic energy sector?
Yet another reason to reject this abysmal proposal.
Sign on to this open letter to industry now to help push more of them to opt out of the Fast Track.
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