Government waste work programme

The Government has adopted a new strategy, which sets out the outcomes it wants to achieve for waste and resource efficiency, and the tools it will use for achieving the outcomes. 

The new strategy replaces Te Rautaki Para | New Zealand waste strategy adopted by the previous Government in March 2023.  

View the Waste and resource efficiency strategy.

View the Waste and resource efficiency work programme 2024 to 2026.

Resource recovery and recycling in Aotearoa New Zealand have been hampered by a lack of infrastructure, lack of household confidence and confusion what can be recycled, and non-recyclable and harmful materials entering supply chains.  

This workstream includes: 

• work to ensure each council throughout the country collects the same recycling materials  
• work with industry to enhance what can be recycled, including through a Recycling Leadership Forum 
• support for recycling infrastructure via the Waste Minimisation Fund

See more about the Waste Minimisation Fund.

Key actions

• plastics phase-outs
• kerbside recycling policies 
• product stewardship

Future plans

Future plans might include a beverage container return scheme, made possible by improvements to waste legislation. 

There is ongoing work to reduce construction and demolition waste affordably and to keep up with waste-related trade rules, like the European Union’s recycled content requirements for packaging. 

The waste sector contributed four and a half per cent of Aotearoa New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and around eight and a half per cent of biogenic methane emissions in 2022.

The emissions reduction plans outline actions to cut waste emissions.  

The waste sector is projected to reduce biogenic methane by about 14 per cent by 2030, compared to 2017 levels. 

See the emissions reduction plans.

The Waste Minimisation Act 2008 (WMA) establishes a waste disposal levy and provides tools for managing waste materials, including product stewardship. 

The WMA and Litter Act 1979 (Litter Act) need modernising and improvement, including: 

• changing how levy funds are shared amongst councils 
• options for councils to spend their share of the levy on a wider range of priorities 
• Improving tools for compliance, monitoring, and enforcement 
• amending provisions for product stewardship to ensure greater clarity of responsibilities; manage financial risks; and enforce obligations 
• including a regulatory framework to support a possible future beverage container return scheme. 

Te Pūtea Whakamauru Para – the Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) focuses on boosting Aotearoa New Zealand’s performance in waste minimisation. There is considerable scope to reduce waste and increase the recovery of useful resources. 

Current priorities include infrastructure to support diversion of priority materials from landfill, through improved: 

• sorting 
• separation 
• resource recovery 
• processing. 

The current focus is on the following priority materials: 

• construction and demolition (C&D) waste
  • timber
  • plasterboard
  • C&D-related plastics such as building wrap.
  • Soil is excluded from consideration at this time 
• organics 
  • food and green waste
  • paper and cardboard 
• plastics
  • plastics 1, 2 and 5
  • coloured PET
  • farm plastics such as bale wrap
  • soft plastics. 

Remediation of contaminated sites 

We fund councils to remediate contaminated sites they own or on behalf of other landowners. The Contaminated Sites and Vulnerable Landfills fund (CSVLF) aims to reduce the risk to human health and the environment posed by legacy contaminated sites and vulnerable landfills.  

This fund replaces the previous Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund. From 1 July 2024, projects to remediate contaminated sites are funded through the waste disposal levy. This has enabled a significant increase in funding and more proactive management of historic sites before they become a problem (such as sites vulnerable to the impact of severe weather events). 

See more on the Contaminated Sites and Vulnerable Landfills Fund.

Compliance, monitoring and enforcement 

Our compliance, monitoring and enforcement role covers a range of regulatory obligations under the Waste Minimisation Act, including: 

• payment of the waste disposal levy 
• record-keeping and reporting provisions  
• monitoring and auditing of levy spend by territorial authorities and Waste Minimisation Fund recipients 
• product bans including single-use shopping bags and other hard-to-recycle and single-use plastics 
• regulated product stewardship (currently the Waste Minimisation (Tyres) Regulations 2023, with additional regulations under development) 

Our strategy sets out our approach to our regulatory role under the Waste Minimisation Act and explains how we achieve compliance and interact with regulated communities. 

See the Waste Minimisation Act 2008: Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement Strategy.

Find out more about compliance, monitoring and enforcement of the Waste Minimisation Act.

Work relating to international chemical and waste commitments is focused on supporting global solutions to environmental issues through negotiating, ratifying and implementing international treaties, including: 

• continued engagement in negotiations towards an international treaty on plastic pollution and advocating for New Zealand interests 
  See Towards an international treaty on plastic pollution
• implementation of the Basel Convention, including e-waste amendments
  See Basel Convention
• ratification of the Minamata Convention (on mercury) to ensure effective compliance and enforcement. 
  See Minamata Convention on Mercury

We are improving access to waste data. 

See improving waste data.

See waste statistics.