{"id":449018,"date":"2026-05-28T06:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/449018\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T06:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:34:16","slug":"new-zealand-generates-double-the-global-average-of-rubbish-report-says-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/449018\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand generates double the global average of rubbish, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"People<\/p>\n

\nPeople unable to put their bins out can ask for special help in Invercargill. (File photo).
\nPhoto: Supplied \/ ODT\n<\/p>\n

A waste reduction advocate says New Zealand is lagging behind in waste reduction.<\/p>\n

A report from the World Bank shows New Zealanders generate almost two kilos of rubbish per person, per day – more than twice the global average.<\/p>\n

Liam Prince from advocacy group The Rubbish Trip said New Zealand had only made small changes to improve the problem, getting the country nowhere.<\/p>\n

“We need to be a lot more ambitious,” he told Morning Report.<\/p>\n

The report said on a per country basis, the largest quantities of single-use plastics are high-income countries, like New Zealand, Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n

Prince said while food waste was also a major problem globally, New Zealand was one of the worst places for it.<\/p>\n

He believed a international treaty to end plastic pollution was needed, something the UN had been in discussions about for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prince said pollution “doesn’t respect national boundaries”, and waste reduction should be a team effort globally.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People unable to put their bins out can ask for special help in Invercargill. (File photo). Photo: Supplied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[48,47,273,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,147],"class_list":["post-449018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}