Waste disposal levy monitoring

The Ministry monitors practices of waste facility operators and territorial authorities to ensure they are compliant with requirements under the Waste Minimisation Act and associated regulations.

Find out what is involved in these compliance site inspections and audits.

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Compliance inspections and audits

These are risk-based approaches to compliance, which allow the Ministry to ensure effective administration of the relevant parts of:

  • the Waste Minimisation Act 2008
  • Waste Minimisation (Calculation and Payment of Waste Disposal Levy) Regulations 2009
  • Waste Minimisation (Information Requirements) Regulations 2021.

Waste disposal levy compliance site inspections

Inspections are an onsite assessment of the facility's activities on a given day, and they are designed to efficiently check compliance of a facility.

This includes:

  • ensuring materials received are consistent with the facility class type
  • checking whether materials are diverted or sent to landfill
  • reviewing how materials are measured.

If any non-compliance issues are found, an audit of the facility may be required.

Waste disposal levy compliance audits

Audits examine and review the information, processes, and systems that disposal facility operators have in place to meet their obligations under the WMA and associated regulations. For example, this can include transaction records and systems for determining net tonnages at a facility.

An audit will check the records kept by the operator against the tonnage and financial records the operator has supplied to the Ministry via the Online Waste Levy System. The Ministry may conduct a site visit as part of the compliance audit.

Territorial authority waste levy expenditure compliance audits

This type of audit assesses the information, processes and systems that a territorial authority (TA) has in place for spending waste levy money.

It includes assessing if the TA has:

  • met its obligations in terms of adopting and reviewing a waste management and minimisation plan
  • complied with the performance standards set out under the WMA
  • spent waste disposal levy funds for the purpose of promoting or achieving waste minimisation in accordance with their waste management and minimisation plan
  • put appropriate records and processes in place to manage the levy funds with due care.

A Ministry official will conduct the on-site audit. This may include interviewing facility representatives, council officers, reviewing records and reports, taking photographs, and observing operations. In some instances, the outcome of an audit will mean that a formal investigation is required.

Enforcement

Following an investigation, the Ministry has a range of enforcement tools under the WMA that can be used if the need arises.

Find out more

For disposal facility queries email info@wastelevy.govt.nz.

For TA related queries email waste.TA@mfe.govt.nz.