Overview of the waste disposal levy
Find out about the purpose of the waste levy, which waste disposal facilities it applies to and the current waste levy settings.
The waste disposal levy was introduced under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008.
In May 2024, the Government agreed to changes to the Act to allow funding from the central government allocation of the waste disposal levy to be spent on a wider range of environmental activities.
The levy raises revenue to fund:
- waste minimisation activities
- activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits
- local authorities to manage emergency waste and to repair or replace waste infrastructure damaged by an emergency
- the Ministry’s waste and hazardous substances work programme
- projects to remediate contaminated sites
Increase in the levy
The Government agreed to increase the waste disposal levy incrementally over the next three years. This is in addition to the planned levy increase on 1 July 2024.
The increases recognise that disposal imposes costs on the environment, society and the economy and encourages organisations and individuals to find more effective and efficient ways to reduce, reuse, recycle or reprocess waste.
Half of the levy money goes to territorial authorities (city and district councils) to spend on promoting or achieving the waste minimisation activities set out in their waste management and minimisation plans.
The remaining levy money (minus administration costs) is put into:
- funding emergency waste management
- activities to improve and protect the environment
- the Waste Minimisation Fund and Plastics Innovation Fund
- the Contaminated Site and Vulnerable Landfills Fund
- the Ministry for the Environment to carry out its waste and hazardous substances work programme.
The Waste Minimisation (Calculation and Payment of Waste Disposal Levy) Regulations 2009 [New Zealand Legislation website] provide definitions for the types of facilities that have to pay the waste levy. These definitions are outlined below.
Municipal disposal facility (class 1)
Municipal disposal facility (class 1) means a facility, including a landfill, that accepts for disposal waste that is or includes household, commercial, industrial or institutional waste, green waste, or waste that is not accepted at other classes of facilities.
Construction and demolition fill disposal facility (class 2)
Construction and demolition fill disposal facility (class 2) means a facility, including a landfill, that accepts waste that is or includes solid waste from construction and demolition activity.
Managed or controlled fill disposal facility (class 3 or 4)
Managed or controlled fill disposal facility (class 3 or 4) means a facility that accepts any one or more of the following for disposal:
- inert waste material from construction and demolition activities
- inert waste material from earthworks or site remediation.
The regulations define cleanfill and industrial monofill. However, these sites are not prescribed disposal facilities and are not subject to the levy. Cleanfill and industrial monofill sites have been required to report their tonnages to the Ministry from 1 January 2023. Transfer stations have been required to report from 1 January 2022.
Cleanfill facility (class 5) means a facility that accepts only virgin excavated natural material such as clay, soil, or rock, for disposal.
Industrial monofill facility means a facility that accepts for disposal waste that discharges or could discharge contaminants or emissions and is generated from a single industrial process (for example, steel or aluminium making, or pulp and paper making).
Transfer stations are facilities that contain a designated receiving area where waste is received, and from which waste (or any material derived from that waste) is transferred to a final disposal site or elsewhere for further processing. Transfer stations do not provide long-term storage for waste or material derived from that waste.
You can find the full definitions of prescribed and other disposal facilities in Section 3B of the Waste Minimisation (Calculation and Payment of Waste Disposal Levy) Regulations 2009 [New Zealand Legislation website].
Additional definitions – such as transfer stations – can be found in the Waste Minimisation (Information Requirements) Regulations 2021 [New Zealand Legislation website].
Levy revenue can be spent on administration and other Ministry costs under section 30 of the Waste Minimisation Act. Cabinet agrees to the amount of levy revenue that funds these activities. This is part of the Ministry's budget appropriation.
On-going administration costs cover the following activities:
- administration of the Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF)
- collection of the levy from disposal facility operators (including collecting returns, issuing invoices, receiving payments and collecting debts)
- distributing 50 per cent of levy revenue to territorial authorities on a quarterly basis
- monitoring activities associated with the levy (eg, auditing disposal facility operators, auditing WMF fund recipients, and monitoring territorial authority’s spending of the waste levy)
- managing offences and enforcement actions associated with the levy including investigations and prosecutions.
Examples of the Ministry’s responsibilities in relation to waste management and minimisation and hazardous substances include:
- product stewardship – supporting co-design of schemes for declared priority products, developing regulations for proposed schemes, implementation activities
- policy development and implementation of the Waste Minimisation Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act
- collecting, maintaining and publishing waste data
- negotiating, ratifying, and implementing multilateral environmental agreements (eg, plastics treaty under development)
- compliance, monitoring and reporting not related to the levy.
Further information about the waste disposal levy is available from:
The Ministry for the Environment
Phone: 0800 WDLEVY (0800 935 389)
Email: info@wastelevy.govt.nz
OWLS website
When you contact us via 0800 WDLEVY, depending on your query, we may need to verify your identity. We will do this using information you provided when you registered.