Danish engineering company Ramboll built this waste to energy plant in their home country. The plant proposed by Neil Laurenson would be similarly designed.

A giant waka-shaped factory may soon be a bold new feature on Huntly's iconic skyline.

The northern Waikato town is known for its power station with its twin smokestack and Deka sign, but the proposed factory would have the added benefit of dealing with New Zealand's growing waste problem by turning landfill waste into energy.

The bold $650 million plan is the brainchild of Neil Laurenson, a Cambridge-based conceptual designer with a strong interest in waste management.

Called 'Kaitiaki', the factory would process items that cannot be recycled, reused, composted or repaired and would work within what Laurenson described as "the circular economy" of waste.

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That economy included towns and cities adopting a waste recycling system similar to Raglan's highly successful Xtreme Zero Waste while on an individual level, he wanted barcode scanners in every New Zealand home to help consumers identify which items were recyclable and which were not.

SUPPLIED Cambridge conceptual designer Neil Laurenson says a waste to energy conversion plant in Huntly would potentially bring in a lot of employment opportunities to the North Waikato town.

The country's rail network and truck network could be utilised to transport waste to the new plant. It could also service waste from the Pacific Islands, he said.

The size of the factory would be dictated by how integrated this circular economy became. The more robust it was, the smaller the plant. As well as turning waste to fuel, there would be a tyre pyrolysis plant to convert old tyres to fuel and a recycling centre.

Laurenson said the plant would handle all of the waste destined for landfills for most of the country and a large proportion from the Pacific Islands.

"This will create a whole lot of jobs for Huntly, and it will create a whole lot of jobs for a lot of other people."

He approached Danish engineering company Ramboll, who construct waste to energy facilities and has drawn up a conceptual design of the factory that would be, in his opinion, "the world's biggest waka".

SUPPLIED This waste to energy plant built by Ramboll has an artifical ski field on its roof.

​Ramboll has built such facilities across Europe including one in Copenhagen equipped with an artificial ski slope on its roof and another which lights up at night.

His idea has won the backing of Waikato's new economic development agency Te Waka, and Laurenson is working with the organisation to pitch the concept to the region's mayors, iwi and business leaders. From there, he hopes it would lead to a feasibility study co-funded between government and regional business.

Huntly community board chairwoman Katrina Langlands did not want to comment about the project until more details become available.

However, the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council's Dr Trisia Farrelly called it "a false solution" to New Zealand's waste problem.

"All you end up doing as they do in Scandinavia is 'feed the beast'. The thing could only keep going as long as you feed it waste, so it perpetuates waste."

Waste incineration was extremely expensive, and Farrelly doubted there would be funding available for such a long-term investment.

"What we need to be doing is investing as much funding as we possibly can into prevention."

Transporting the waste to a single site in the North Island would also generate huge carbon miles, she said.