We provide a weekly Kerbside Collection Service for the communities of Te Kūiti, Piopio, Mōkau/Awakino and Waitomo ward and Village.

• Piopio, Mōkau/Awakino is Monday
• The Waitomo ward and village collection day is Tuesday
• Te Kūiti ½ (Eastern side of Railway) collection day is Thursday 
• Te Kūiti ½ (Western side of Railway) is Friday

Please place your official council rubbish bags and recycling on the kerbside by 8am on the day of collection.

You can put out as many Council rubbish bags as you like, but rubbish in unofficial bags won’t be collected.

Blue rubbish bags can be purchased from:

• Customer Service Centre at 160 Rora Street, Te Kūiti
• Waitomo District Landfill and Waste Transfer Stations
• Te Kūiti New World
• Te Kūiti Super Value
• Waitomo Caves Visitor Information Centre
• Piopio Superette
• Maniaiti/Benneydale Food Store
• Whitebait Inn Mōkau
• Patels Mini Market
• Mōkau Museum and Gallery.   

Guidelines for our official bags

• Broken glass must be well wrapped in newspaper. 

• No hazardous waste.

• Weight of full bag should not exceed 15kg. 

• Do not place sharp objects or hot ashes in the rubbish bag

Kerbside Recycling

Type 5 plastic can now also be recycled, with WDC accepting plastics type 1, 2 and 5.

Type 5 plastic are items such as ice cream containers and yoghurt containers.

Another change is that pizza boxes can also be accepted for recycling.

Plastics type 3, 4, 6 and 7 are not accepted for recycling.

The following items can be placed in your recycling bin:

• clean paper, flattened cardboard and pizza boxes (stack inside or next to bin)

• clean cans and tins

• plastics that have been cleaned and have the recycling triangle 1 , 2 or 5 on them, no lids please

• empty, clean glass bottles and jars

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Properties that receive the Kerbside Collection Service are provided with a blue recycling bin for recycling.  Previously, these were teal green.

Only this bin can be used for this service. The recycling bin is for residential quantities of recycling. Commercial volumes of recycling must be taken to the Landfill or Transfer Stations.

• Commercial volume is defined as extra recycling that is in excess of the limit of what you can fit into your recycling bin on any given week.
  
  

How recycling is sorted

Did you know recycling is sorted twice??

It is sorted at the kerbside when your recycling is collected, and again at the material recovery facility.

It may look like your recycling is thrown in with your refuse bags, but this isn't the case - there are several compartments on the EnviroWaste vehicle for refuse and recyclable items.

However, any recycling that is visibly contaminated will be treated as general waste and disposed of in the refuse compartment.

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Bin audits

When rubbish or items that can’t be recycled are put into your recycling bins, it can contaminate the whole load of recycling in the truck.

If these items pose a health and safety risk, then it costs a lot of time and money to shut down the sorting facility and deep clean everything before work can resume… and then there’s all the landfill fees.

Because of this, we conduct bin audits of your recycling to help educate about what can – and can’t – be recycled. It also helps us to identify the problem areas so that we can design education and community engagement projects to turn those stats around.

For the most part, residents have been doing the right thing and placing the correct recycling into the bin. Unfortunately, a small number of people are putting the wrong things into their recycling. While there may only be small quantities of contamination, they compromise other recycling and can lead to a whole truck load going to landfill. It doesn't take much contamination to cause a problem.