Sorting It out: Food Waste Separation in Large New Zealand Hotels: Barriers and Incentives

Food waste presents a resource management challenge for New Zealand communities, businesses and governance institutions. The energy, labour, soil, water and myriad other inputs used to grow, manufacture, distribute and prepare food are lost with each kilogram that is thrown away. Numerous technologies enable the energy and nutrient potential within food waste to be recovered. Systems of this type are most efficacious when food is separated from other waste streams at source. This research demonstrates that New Zealand‟s existing waste related legislation has the potential to foster market conditions favourable to food waste recovery initiatives and technologies. However, the suite of policy instruments currently actuated provides weak stimulus for the adoption, innovation or expansion of food waste diversion ventures amongst stakeholders. Current legislation does little to incentivise food waste separation within hotels. Many hotel operators are reliant upon third party provision of waste collection, recovery and or disposal services. Exceptions include operators for whom onsite food waste processing systems or arrangements with individual farmers (who collect waste at low cost) are viable. Within this thesis, food waste, the New Zealand tourism product and the environment‟s capacity to assimilate waste are conceptualised as common pool resources requiring interconnected management regimes.