Click the tiles below to discover more about changes to collections in residential and commercial areas:

Alongside the Long Term Plan, Council consulted on and adopted the Waste Minimisation and Management Plan, which aims for Matamata-Piako to be zero waste by 2038.

As part of this commitment to reducing our waste, we consulted on changing the kerbside rubbish collection service (for those who receive it) to a wheelie bin for rubbish, a food scraps bin and recycling bins. This proposal received strong community support in 2021, with 87% of submitters supporting this change. This also aligns with the national changes currently being proposed by Ministry for the Environment for how rubbish is collected and processed across the country.

In September 2022 Waste Management NZ were awarded the contract for the next ten years starting in September 2023. The new service will include:

• A residential food scraps bin – collected weekly
• A wheelie bin for rubbish – collected fortnightly
• Continued fortnightly kerbside collection of glass and recycling (same as the current service).

If you are a Commercial organisation, we are no longer doing kerbside collections for your area. To see more, including how to dispose of your waste, click here.

Waste Management and Minimisation Plan

Long Term Plan

2020 submissions on rubbish and recycling

You may have seen the news about the latest nation-wide recycling standards. These are coming into force from February 1 to help make it easy for people to recycle no matter where they are in the country. Every Council is following suit, and aligning their kerbside collection requirements.

Good news Matamata-Piako – we are already doing it! The changes we made to kerbside collections last year aligned with the new government regulations, so you’re ahead of the game. We knew these rules were coming and wanted to make the transition as easy as possible.

Here are a couple of things that you may not know: pizza boxes can go in your yellow bin but, like all recycling, they need to be cleaned out first. Any food left in the box will contaminate the cardboard, and mean it’s sent to landfill. Also, aerosols cans (steel and aluminium) must go in the rubbish bin, they can not be recycled. This is because they pose a safety hazard when compacted - they can explode or catch fire!

Over the years, what can go into recycling bins has changed, so if you have an old recycling bin the information on the lid may be outdated. To see more about the new guidelines and what can be recycled click here.

• Make sure your wheelie bins are put out with the front logo facing the street. This will stop your wheels getting damaged and help the truck to grab the bin and empty it.
• Keep the wheelie bins separated from the other bins by at least 30cm (the more the better!), this will  allow the truck arms to reach out and grab the bin safely.
• If you live in an area with multiple houses, food scrap bins and glass bins can be grouped together. These get emptied by hand, so it’s quicker and easier for drivers to empty them at the same spot
• Put out bins in order from smallest to largest (left to right) as driver approaches, this way they can see which bins you have out to be collected.
• If your bin is only getting partially emptied, then it may be over-stuffed. The bins get tipped completely upside-down, so for rubbish to get stuck at the bottom it would have to be pushed tightly against the bin walls. Please put rubbish in the red bins loosely, to ensure that they get emptied completely. If you find that your food scraps are sticking, try putting some leaves, or a little bit of water in the bottom of your food scrap bin to loosen things up.
• Did you used to get rubbish and recycling reminders on Antenno, but haven’t been getting them since the changeover? Try uninstalling and reinstalling the app, and then make sure that you add your specific address. If you input only a town’s name, then you won’t get all of the notifications we send, including rubbish reminders.