How should we manage our district's waste?

Managing waste responsibly is crucial for protecting the environment and ensuring our district is sustainable. From sorting recyclables at home to industrial waste reduction strategies, every step helps.

The Ashburton District Council provides a range of waste reduction and recovery services in the Ashburton District, including:

  • Kerbside bin collection services to over 11,500 households and businesses
  • Ashburton and Rakaia resource recovery parks
  • Rural recycling drop-off facilities around the district
  • Methven green waste and inorganic material drop-off facility
  • Management of litter bins and littering

These services offer cost-effective waste management solutions, support the conservation of resources, and help protect the environment and public health.

The Solid Waste Management and Minimisation Bylaw 2018 is one of the tools Council uses to manage these services, it was last updated in 2018 and is now due to be reviewed.

Submissions closed on Sunday 29 September.

Key Issues

Click on an issue below to read more about what we're proposing. To learn about the other changes we're considering, please view the Consultation Document.

  • Managing waste at community events

    Should public events held on Council land require a plan for managing and minimising waste?

    Learn more 

  • Reducing waste on construction sites

    What's the right approach for managing building and construction waste?

    Learn more 

  • Retrieval of bins in the CBD

    Should businesses in the CBD be required to bring their bin in before a specific time?

    Learn more 

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bylaw is being updated to reflect changes in the waste sector since 2018, these include:

  • Government decisions to standardise recyclable collections nationally
  • Government and Council decisions to introduce a food organic/ garden organic (FOGO) kerbside collection service in Ashburton District from 1 September 2026; Government decisions to increase waste levies
  • The continuing need to minimise waste to landfill to conserve resources, reduce costs and help minimise greenhouse gas emissions from landfills
  • Meeting objectives in the Ashburton Waste Management and Minimisation Plan, such as
    • Working in partnership with the waste sector and local community to raise awareness of waste issues.
    • Increasing the range of reuse, recycling, and recovery options available in the district

We also identified a few issues with the current bylaw which need to be addressed, they include:

  • The need to include Conditions of Service in the Bylaw to enable robust enforcement of standards and the introduction of FOGO (Food Organic, Garden Organic) kerbside collection services in 2026.
  • The need for a flexible and transparent process for updating of Conditions of Service that complies with decision making requirements under the Local Government Act.
  • Improving the clarity of the Bylaw by using the language that the community is familiar with, such as “kerbside collection service”, “Resource Recovery Parks”, “Drop-off Facilities” and “Litter bins”.
  • Including a new definition of Managed or Controlled Landfill for consistency with Government regulations.

For more detail, please view the Consultation Document.

The introduction of a kerbside collection of food and garden waste (green bins) was approved in the recent Long Term Plan and will begin from 1 September 2026.

Council is currently working through the tender process, which will determine which contractor operates our kerbside collection services from that date.

During this review of the Bylaw, we are including conditions of service in preparation for this new service which includes details around bin size, proposed arrangements for alternative bins, fees where a property wants to change bin sizes more than once per year, and the frequency of collection.

This bylaw lays out the rules for how solid waste reduction and recovery services are managed in the District. It sets out Council’s expectations about how people, households and businesses will manage their waste disposal and collection and the consequences if their actions fall short of the expected standards.

The Bylaw covers rules for:

  • collection, transportation and processing of waste including the kerbside collection service and private waste collection services
  • a registration system for waste collectors and operators;
  • operation of resource recovery parks and drop-off facilities
  • managing waste at events on Council-owned and managed land
  • managing construction site waste management of litter and nuisance in public places.