Recycling and Rubbish
Council is looking at how to improve waste services including public bins, residential rubbish collection, recycling and safe disposal of what’s left (residual waste). The aim is to improve the types of services offered and how they are paid for.
This page contains information on how to dispose of waste responsibly and what is being done about illegal dumping.
Illegal waste dumping includes any waste left on public property. In the last 3 years council has dealt with 17 recorded cases of illegal dumping. Over the last few years illegal dumping has cost ratepayers approximately $10,000 a year to clean up.
Illegal dumping has damaged our environment and spoiled parts of this precious place for everyone. Dumped items have included fridges, tyres, general rubbish, animal carcasses, human waste. In addition, half a tonne of waste is taken out of the town bins every day. Town waste bins are regularly abused and used by a few locals for household or commercial rubbish.
If illegal dumping continues to grow as a problem, Council may also look setting up at additional enforcement and regulatory options such as signs or CCTV in key areas.
Help stop the dodgy dumpers
- Talk to your friends, colleagues, whanau and neighbours about this – spread the word that dodgy dumping is not acceptable and costs our environment and our ratepayers.
- Tell Council about any waste you see so that we can get it fixed. Please provide any details of any vehicles involved, such as registration plate, colour, make and model. You can do this by:
- Putting in a request for service (leave us photos and the exact location)
- Calling 03 319 5026
- Email us
- For safety reasons, and for us to investigate, we ask that people leave the dumped material as it is and don’t touch it.
- What happens then?
- The job is logged in Council systems so we can track where issues are happening and how quickly and how well we deal with them.
- An inspection may be needed (especially if the issue is around human waste or other hazardous materials)
- A clean up happens and rubbish is checked to see if it can be traced back to those responsible
What illegal dumping costs our community
Most dodgy dumping is done by a small handful of locals. Some blame recent changes at Innovative Waste Kaikoura being 'too expensive', 'too difficult' or 'not open at the right times', while there's always room for improvement, Kaikoura is actually cheaper than most of the surrounding districts, has a friendly team and is open 6 days a week for most weeks of the year.
Our community end up losing out because of illegal dumping in the following ways:
- Council time to deal with the issue – that’s time that could be spending improving other services
- The cost to ratepayers of clean-up and disposal – that’s around $10,000 a year and expected to get more expensive unless things improve.
- Kaikōura is home to many special native species and landscapes. This unique biodiversity helps keep our air clear, our water clean, and provide food, education, medicine and recreation for our local residents and visitors. Illegally dumping waste spoils this precious place and pollutes landscapes, waterways and marine environments.
- Litter also has impacts for our economy (e.g. tourism).
What Council and IWK do to help reduce illegal dumping
- Provide collection, recycling and rubbish disposal services
- Budget $10,000 per year to pay for the clean-up and disposal of reported illegally dumped waste
- Contract services for the removal of human waste.
- Provide monthly inspections and clean-ups (if needed) of key areas including , Kiwa Road and South Bay
- Provide public education on how and where to dispose of waste responsibly
- IWK is happy to work one on one with individuals, businesses or community groups to help them understand how to reduce and recycle their waste as much as possible and make visits to IWK as cheap, quick and easy as possible.
- Offenders caught illegally dumping rubbish will be ordered to remove the rubbish
Council does not remove dumped rubbish on private property. The owner of the property is responsible for the disposal of rubbish dumped on their property.
There is no roadside rubbish collection in Kaikōura. Household waste needs to be taken to Innovative Waste Kaikoura (IWK).
- Monday 9am-4pm
- Tuesday CLOSED
- Wednesday 9am-4pm
- Thursday 9am-4pm
- Friday 9am-4pm
- Saturday and Sunday 10am-4pm
Weekly roadside recycling collection is available throughout the District. If the collection day is a public holiday, it will be collected the next working day.
- Kaikōura Township and South Bay - Weekly Thursdays
- Rural recycling collection from Oaro - Kēkerengū - Weekly Wednesdays
- Find out more on IWK's website here
Recent changes both in NZ and overseas mean it's harder or more expensive to recycle certain materials. If IWK collect materials they can't recycle, ratepayers end up paying for it over time as our landfill fills up or Innovative Waste has to pay to get rid of it. Cutting corners at the kerbside still costs your pocket in the long run.
If you need more information, don't have a green bag or want to check collection days/times, call the team on 03 319 7148 or visit their website or Facebook.
Recycling bins are available from IWK, to arrange yours fill out a New Urban Recycling Crates form and hand it into Innovative Waste Kaikōura.
Handy tips to make sure your recycling gets collected:
- Wash and squash all recycling
- Separate your glass
- Use the provided green bags for papers
- Flatten cardboard and stack under containers
- Make sure your recycling is out by 7am.
IWK Will accept the following as recycling:
- All plastic including clean shopping bags/glad wrap/bubble wrap
- Aluminium and steel cans
- Plastic bottles and containers, including soft drink and milk (1-7's)
- Newspapers
- Paper, junk mail, magazines etc.
- Cardboard.
IWK will NOT accept the following as recycling:
- Personal hygiene items
- Polystyrene meat trays
- Foil lined wrappings
- Chip and biscuit wrappers
- Coffee and cat food sachets
- Cigarette butts
- Toothpaste tubes
- Fiberglass
- Rubber.
- Remove all recyclable material. Includes, plastic, paper, cardboard, metal and glass. Even broken glass and crockery can be recycled. This can be disposed of at (or collected by) IWK free of charge.
- Remove hazardous substances. Includes house and garden chemicals and cleaners, medicines. Small amounts can be disposed of at IWK free of charge. For larger volumes a small charge may apply.
- Compost/recycle all food waste. That includes any and all food scraps, dated or expired food, napkins and paper food wrapping. This can all can be disposed of at IWK free of charge. (Township residents can have theirs collected for free.)
- Compost/recycle all garden waste. Includes: grass cuttings, tree and shrub trimmings, leaves, weeds and general garden waste. This can be disposed of for a small fee at IWK.
- Disposable baby nappies, sanitary items, etc can be disposed of at IWK's Nappy Disposal Station in a special bag (avaiable for purchase from IWK). There is no additional charge after you buy a bag.
Business are required by our District Plan to separate waste and recycling.
Your business' recycling can be disposed of free of charge at IWK. Alternatively, a business recycling collection service is offered Mondays and Fridays from $11.25 per week.
If your waste can’t be recycled, it can be taken to IWK and its' disposal paid for by weight or you may be able to have it collected for a fee.
Find out about IWK's business services here.
Want to cut costs, help our environment and make the most of free recycling?
- Make sure your staff are trained to use the recycling system
- Separate at source: have a separate bin for each item inside your business in each area, and a recycling area outside that is easily accessible
- Have a kitchen system: even if you kitchen is only a smoko room, have a bucket for food waste, another for glass, one for other recycling, and one for waste.
- Appoint a recycling champion: use them to train new staff and keep everyone recycling.
Waste Minimisation Programme
The future of waste in Kaikōura
Council is working with Innovative Waste Kaikōura (IWK) to look at how to improve waste services including public bins, residential rubbish collection, recycling and safe disposal of what’s left (residual waste). Our current waste management and minimisation strategy is out of date. Work will begin soon to develop a new strategy, part funded by Ministry for the Environment. The strategy will make use of past work, look at current activities and costs and review likely future needs and direction. The strategy will include reuse, recycling, rubbish, the future of the landfill and illegal dumping. The aim is to improve the types of services offered and how they are paid for.
Innovative Waste Kaikōura (IWK) is a Council Controlled organisation that manages Kaikōura's landfill, resource recovery, recycling and rubbish services. The Council owns 100% of the Kaikōura Enhancement Trust (KET), which in turn owns 100% of Innovative Waste Kaikōura Ltd (IWK).
Managing your earthquake waste.
Kaikōura District is a 'Zero Waste Community'. Our vision is to send zero waste to landfill. We currently divert approximately 75% of our waste away from landfill.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake on 14 November 2016 caused extensive damage to land, coastal areas, buildings, homes and infrastructure in our district. It is estimated about 8000 tonnes of earthquake waste will be produced – equating to about eight years’ of waste for Kaikōura.
The Ministry for the Environment has approved $2.6m for a 'Waste Minimisation' project, to help to reduce earthquake waste and increase the recovery of useful resources from waste.
Council are working with Innovative Waste Kaikōura on a range of developments and upgrades to make sure we are doing all we can to reduce. reuse and recycle effectively.
Keep up to date with their developments on Facebook.
What does this mean for you?
Right now the message is simple – if you’re doing any work on your property, including demolishing it, contact us and make sure you’re following the Waste
Minimisation guidelines.
Useful Links
04 January 2019
