Have your say on options to reduce emissions from organic waste
Section 2. Supporting councils to implement or enhance kerbside organic services
There are 7 questions that can be answered within Section 2.
You can read this section and the questions either:
- in the sector feedback document (PDF 1.7MB)
- or as HTML below.
Section 2 is one of the sections under Part A, which focuses on improvements to organic waste management.
Read more about Part A: Improvements to organic waste management (PDF 1.7MB)
Context
Council kerbside organic collections give hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders more choice on how to keep organic materials from their kitchens and gardens out of landfill. Having accessible and effective systems in place to divert organic materials from households is important, as over 200,000 tonnes of food scraps were estimated to have been sent to landfill through household kerbside rubbish collections in 2023.27
A portion of New Zealanders compost or have worm farms at home, returning nutrients to their soil and gardens, or feed it to animals. But many of us lack the space or ability to compost at home. Some use community composting facilities, such as community gardens or compost hubs, or pay for collection by local providers.
For many households, having a food scraps or food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collection bin provided to their property makes it easier to keep organic waste out of their landfill bin, without having to compost, organise a private collection or transport organic materials off site.
Kerbside organic collections have been shown to be an effective method for diverting food waste from landfill. A trial by Wellington City Council from 2020 to 2022 tested the effectiveness of diverting food waste through kerbside collection by providing a weekly kerbside food waste collection service to 500 households, and comparing the results with another 450 households composting at home.
Results from waste audits showed that kerbside collection was more than twice as effective as home composting in diverting food waste from landfill in this trial. On average, the amount of food waste going into landfill bins fell by 38.8 percent per household when a kerbside collection bin was provided, compared with a 16.4 percent reduction per household when home composting.28
27 WasteMINZ. 2024. Organic Waste Collection and Processing: Guidance for Local Authorities (PDF 10.1MB). Auckland: WasteMINZ.
28 Wellington City Council. Para Kai Miramar Peninsula Trial. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
Case study: Christchurch City Council organic collection nearly 20 years old
Christchurch City Council introduced its FOGO kerbside collection service in March 2009 as part of a city wide strategy to reduce landfill waste and increase resource recovery. The service provides all eligible rateable properties with an 80 litre green organics bin, which is collected weekly. Rateable properties have the option to upgrade to a 240 litre bin for an additional charge. Non rateable properties such as schools, churches and community groups can also opt in to the collection as a paid service.
When the organic collection began, approximately 47,000 tonnes of organic waste were collected from households each year. Since then, the annual total has increased to around 53,000 tonnes. Participation rates have remained relatively stable, with 54 percent use by residents with FOGO bins in 2009 and 53 percent in 2026. Levels of contamination (people putting non-allowable materials in bins) have remained consistently low, reducing from an initial 1.0 percent to less than 0.5 percent in 2026.
Marketing and behaviour change initiatives play a key role in maintaining service quality. The council uses seasonal campaigns and an app to help residents check what the FOGO service accepts.
Since the introduction of the FOGO service in Christchurch, approximately 820,000 tonnes of organic material have been diverted from landfill to produce high quality compost. Christchurch City Council is now preparing to transition from composting to an anaerobic digestion system. Construction of the facility is underway, with the aim to be producing biogas by 2027.
Good progress has been made in establishing organic collections across New Zealand councils since 2006. By the end of 2026, 22 councils will be offering organic waste collections,29 representing 33 percent of all territorial authorities and covering 65 percent of New Zealand’s urban population.
However, two-thirds of all councils still do not have kerbside organic collections in place. In addition, where such collections exist, initial feedback from council officers indicates that fewer residents take up the service than expected. The feedback identifies a range of barriers to implementing organic collections and achieving planned participation and diversion rates, including:
- fiscal constraints and increasing costs
- lack of political and public support
- issues with the availability and proximity of organic processing infrastructure
- resource challenges, and the need to align with existing priorities and service commitments set through six-yearly Waste Management and Minimisation Plans (WMMPs)
- changes in national policy direction
- residents’ perceptions of and behaviours when separating and handling decomposing organic materials.
Introducing a kerbside organic collection service also takes time, working in with the staged cycles of a council’s Annual Plan and 10-year Long-Term Plan, along with the WMMP as noted above. Any additional services need to be included in advance in the priorities and planned service delivery outcomes of a WMMP, as this informs how councils may use waste levy funding.
We welcome feedback from councils on barriers to implementing kerbside organic collections – including potential operational, implementation, usage or funding barriers – so that we can better understand councils’ needs in growing New Zealand’s collection of organic materials at kerbside.
29 Rotorua Lakes District Council and Ashburton District Council are both planning to launch new kerbside organic collections in the second half of 2026.