Recycling and Rubbish
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.
Innovative Waste Kaikōura is a Council Controlled organisation. Council contracts IWK to deliver services including managing the district’s recycling and rubbish, maintaining public toilets and looking after some of our water infrastructure and services. IWK also provides waste management services to other private business.
The Council owns 100% of the Kaikōura Enhancement Trust (KET), which in turn owns 100% of Innovative Waste Kaikōura Ltd (IWK).
IWK manages the landfill and resource recovery operations, delivers recycling services, and in 2015 was contracted to provide public toilet cleaning services within the district and maintenance for Three Waters.
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.
Although both IWK and Council are committed to keeping our district and its facilities clean and tidy, to keep the costs of these services acceptable to the ratepayer, we have to make sensible decisions about how often things are cleaned/checked.
Council is currently working with IWK to make sure the appropriate contracts, people and communications are in place to allow IWK to look after the Districts public bins, toilets and deal with dumped waste. This includes:
- Making sure there is a 24/7 contact phone number for the public to report issues with toilets/bins/dumped waste (including human waste)
- Making sure toilets are checked and cleaned as often as is required
- Making sure bins are emptied as often as required.
If you see an issue with any of the Council managed public toilets around town, put in a request for service here so that we can get it fixed.
Waste Minimisation Programme
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
