What Council's doing about waste

We had planned to introduce this service by 2028, following a requirement from the previous government for councils to provide food scraps collections by 2030. However, in December 2024, the current government removed this requirement.

As a result, any future food scraps and green waste collection service will now be considered through our Long-Term Plan discussions, which are scheduled to begin in the second half of 2026.

More than half of the waste sent to landfill from our city is made up of food scraps and garden waste. Introducing a collection service like this would allow these materials to be turned into compost, helping to significantly reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

Our machinery in our recycling processing plant (known as the Materials Recovery Facility in Awapuni) is no longer fit-for-purpose. By upgrading our machinery, we’ll be better equipped to handle the large volume and types of materials that need to be sorted and processed.

Currently, we’re the only council in New Zealand directly providing waste collection services, and so we want to see if there are more effective ways to do this.

Our plan also focuses on ongoing education to teach people about reducing waste. This will include more open days and tours at the Awapuni Resource Recovery Park during school holidays.