The Act encourages a reduction in the amount of waste we generate and dispose of in New Zealand. The aim is to reduce the environmental harm of waste and provide economic, social and cultural benefits for New Zealand.
As part of Budget 2024 decisions, the Government is amending the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 to enable the central government allocation of the waste disposal levy to be spent on a broader range of environmental outcomes and help achieve fiscal savings.
Waste Minimisation Act 2008 [New Zealand Legislation website]
Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Act [New Zealand Legislation]
To achieve its aims the Act:
imposes a levy on all waste disposed of in landfills to generate funding to help local government, communities and businesses minimise waste and achieve other environmental goals.
establishes a process for government accreditation of product stewardship schemes which recognises those businesses and organisations that take responsibility for managing the environmental impacts of their products.
requires product stewardship schemes to be developed for certain ‘priority products’ where there is a high risk of environmental harm from the waste or significant benefits from recovering the product.
allows for regulations to be made to control the disposal of products, materials or waste, require take-back services, deposit fees or labelling of products.
allows for regulations to be made that make it mandatory for certain groups (eg, landfill facility operators) to report on waste to improve information on waste minimisation.
clarifies the roles and responsibilities of territorial authorities with respect to waste minimisation.
establishes the Waste Advisory Board to give independent advice to the Minister for the Environment on waste minimisation issues.
Provisions of the Act are outlined in the following pages on our website:
These regulations cover record keeping and reporting obligations for territorial authorities, cleanfills, industrial monofills and transfer stations.
These regulations cover the calculation and payment of the waste disposal levy.
These regulations ban the sale and manufacture of certain products containing plastic microbeads.
For more information, see Plastic microbeads ban.
These regulations ban retailers from selling or providing single-use plastic shopping bags to customers.
For more information see Single-use plastic shopping bags are banned in New Zealand.
These regulations support the accredited product stewardship scheme for tyres.
The Act was the result of a Private Members Bill called the Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill [New Zealand Parliament website], introduced to Parliament by the Green Party on 4 May 2006. The Act was passed in September 2008.
Related documents
The following documents were produced before or while the Act went through the Parliamentary process.