National Environmental Standards for air quality

You can read these prohibited activity regulations on this our Prohibited activities in the NES page.

Five ambient (outdoor) air standards will be effective from September 2005. The pollutants covered are:

• fine particles (PM ₁₀)
• nitrogen dioxide (NO ₂)
• ozone (O ₃)
• sulphur dioxide (SO ₂)
• carbon monoxide (CO).

Regional Councils must identify areas where air quality is likely, or known to exceed the national air quality standard. There are known as airsheds (see airshed map). Regional councils must monitor air quality for pollutants that will exceed the standard and publicly report any exceedances.

A design and efficiency standard has been introduced (effective from September 2005) for new wood burners in urban areas all new wood burners in urban areas must have a discharge limit of less than 1.5 grams of fine particles per kilogram of wood burnt and a thermal efficiency of greater than 65 percent. There is a list of approved wood burners on the Ministry for the Environment web site.

The standard requires the collection and destruction of methane gas at all landfill sites with a total design capacity greater than 1 million tonnes of refuse. The regulation sets standards for the flaring of the gas, but also allows for destruction of collected gas via beneficial uses of methane such as electricity generation.