Write to your Member of Parliament

The aim of our Regeneration Not Incineration campaign is to keep Aotearoa NZ free from harmful incinerators and to move towards a zero waste nation where nothing and no one is disposable. 

Our Parliament is the best way to ensure that this happens by putting a moratorium on the building of any waste incinerators (including projects that use different technologies - so called ‘advanced thermal treatment’ like pyrolysis and gasification). 

You can write to any member of parliament using their details in this format: firstname.lastname@parliament.govt.nz

There are many different reasons why you might be opposed to an incinerator in your community - it might be health, economic, environmental, cultural or social reasons. All of them are valid.

At the same time we need to supercharge our movement for zero waste. This could happen with Parliament using the tools it has to put systems solutions in place. These include things like extended producer responsibility schemes where those who produce the materials must deal with them at the end of their life. Most of us know these kinds of schemes through things like bottle returns which are common all over the world.

Tell your member of Parliament you want to keep Aotearoa incinerator-free! You should expect a proper response from them in return.

Here’s a short template you can use:

Dear [name of MP],

I’m writing to you because I’m concerned about the building of waste incinerators in our country.

Incinerators emit toxic dioxins, heavy metals and acid gases that pollute the air, land and water that surrounds them. 

Incinerators don’t deal with our waste problems, instead they lock us into producing more waste as they need to be continually fed more waste.

Incinerators also don’t create economic benefits for communities. While the initial construction of an incinerator might include jobs for the community, this is true of any large scale infrastructure project. Jobs at the incinerator by comparison with any other way of dealing with waste come in a poor last place. 

Instead we must be smarter with the resources we have that become waste by building projects to repair, reuse and repurpose used resources to make them go another round. This is the New Zealand way to do things.

These tools and solutions already exist - and are proven to work. We just need you to use your power to make them happen. 

I would like to see a moratorium on all new incinerator projects including those using “advanced thermal treatments” that have unknown impacts.

I look forward to your reply.

Thank you.

Kind regards,

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