What happens to my waste?

With your help, we’ve nearly halved* the amount of household waste going to landfill since launching our kerbside collections.

Your food scraps journey

Being picked up by the truck is just the start of the journey. Once collected, all food scraps are sent for processing at an anaerobic digestion facility in Reporoa, where your food scraps get turned into biofuel and liquid fertiliser.

Your garden waste journey

All your garden waste collected from the kerbside is composted at Hampton Downs in the Waikato, to be used by farms and orchards across the Bay of Plenty and Waikato.

What happens to my recycling?

Good quality plastics collected (numbers 1, 2 and 5) are turned into new things like food containers, detergent bottles and products for the building industry – and some of that happens right here in New Zealand. Bottles and jars collected in our glass recycling bins are melted down to make new ones in Auckland. Paper, cardboard, tins, and cans are recycled into new paper, cardboard and metal products.

How can I help our drivers?

Collection truck drivers are the unsung heroes of the service and residents can make their job easier by doing a few simple things. Please make sure your bin lids can close and leave 30 centimetres between bins when they’re out on the kerb. Ensure bins are well clear of power poles, cars and letterboxes, and put smaller bins like food scraps and glass to the right when you’re facing the road, so they’re more easily seen.

How can I remember when to put out my bins?

If you download the Tauranga kerbside collections app, you can allow notifications that will remind you when to put out your bins.

Tauranga's kerbside app

Or visit When do I put my bins out?

Waste audits^ conducted in 2025 showed the per capita waste to landfill for the combined population of Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty was 0.475 tonnes/annum, which is ahead of the national average of per capita waste to class 1 landfills at 0.533.
 
^Waste audits are conducted for Tauranga City Council by independent waste consultants using the international SWAP (Solid Waste Analysis Protocols) method to estimate the quantity and types of household waste going to landfill.

Our kerbside rates funded service was introduced in 2021 and the tonnages for household collections are below:

*These are actual weights annually