The 2024/25 year saw Wastebusters go from strength to strength and achieve significant milestones across all our areas of strategic development. This was, in no small part, due to the thoughtful and robust leadership of GM Gina Dempster and her vibrant and action-focused management team. The Board is delighted by the mahi they, and the whole Wastebusters whānau, have put in throughout this year.
Core day-to-day activities have continued unabated, while the enhancement of the management team has allowed significant progress to be made on advancing Wastebusters 2.0. Notably, the appointment of a Programme Manager was pivotal in this progress, resulting in effective planning and progress, as well as significant relationship-building.
Financially, the budget achieved a fine balance between enhanced income and the increased spending on personnel that allowed so much progress to be made towards the Wasties 2.0 plan. Income streams at the site came under pressure from the protracted roundabout installation at the Ballantyne Road/Riverbank Road intersection, but in the final analysis, this had limited impact on the bottom line. This reflects both the positivity and creativity of our staff, and the loyalty of our customers. The Board is proud that the business has been able to maintain its status as a Living Wage employer, as well as growing the team’s productivity through additional staffing. In addition to this, we are reporting that our number of direct contacts, in the delivery of waste minimisation education online and in person, is increasing year on year. We’re winning more hearts, minds and doing in our mission to zero waste.
It was such a thrill to see the business achieve pinnacle and peer recognition at the 2024 Wānaka Chamber Business Awards, bringing home three awards, including the Supreme award. This is testament to the growth and evolution of the business over the last 25 years, and highlights the exciting truth that social enterprise can be a stand-out in its delivery of business excellence. Congratulations to the whole team for the mahi that brought the mana.
In August 2024 the Board participated in a strategy review workshop, and during 2025 we have worked with Grounded Governance and the Friends of Wānaka Wastebusters in the development of a profile and skills matrix to provide the basis for the appointment of a new Board Chair. This has resulted in the appointment of Mat Woods, who will chair the Board from the November AGM. It is satisfying to pass the baton to such an experienced and safe pair of hands! I would like to acknowledge Matthew Luxon and Mike Toepfer, who are resigning at the AGM to pursue new horizons. My warmest and most grateful thanks to them, to the other current Directors and to all the many people I have had the pleasure of working with during my Wastebusters’ tenure.
Mā te wā. Ngā mihi mō ngā tau kei mua i te aroaro.
Sally Battson
Board Chair
November 2025
This year our amazing Wastebusters whānau has been busy keeping everything we can out of landfill and supporting resourcefulness in our community while also working on bringing our dream of Wastebusters 2.0 into reality.
We were humbled and absolutely stoked to take home the Wānaka Chamber of Commerce Business Awards Supreme Business Award, along with the Community Contribution and Business Sustainability awards. This success was a powerful recognition of the dedicated mahi of our entire team, giving us huge confidence for the ambitious journey ahead.
We welcomed Aviette Musin on a fixed-term contract as our new Programme Manager for Wastebusters 2.0. Her expertise provided the dedicated, focused capacity needed to accelerate progress on this strategic goal.
Funding was secured through Queenstown Lakes Community Composting Project for the Compost Collect pilot, a joint venture with our neighbours Wānaka Greenwaste that will turn commercial food scraps into valuable compost, launching in 2026. We also intensified our focus on Construction and Demolition (C&D) materials, trialling diversion methodology and securing initial partnerships to divert waste from landfill. With our current site so space-constrained, we are extremely limited in the C&D materials which can be accepted for reuse, but this work will lay the groundwork for future diversion on a bigger site.
We made a compelling case to the Council for the necessary land expansion for Wastebusters 2.0 and prepared for the MfE Waste Minimisation Fund application process to support our expansion plans.
A continued focus for us this year has been on strengthening the Wastebusters whānau and ensuring we are equipped not just for the daily challenges, but for future growth. We continued to be a Living Wage employer, reflecting our commitment to the well-being and value of our staff. Feedback from the team via staff survey results highlighted strong morale and resilience within our workplace culture with 89% saying they enjoy working at Wastebusters and 93% feeling cared for by their manager.
The district’s rapid growth brings challenges as well as opportunities, particularly the Ballantyne Road/Riverbank Road roadworks which demanded flexibility and good humour from our team and customers throughout 2024. Despite the road cones, ongoing community support ensured our Reuse Shop continued to be a first choice destination for both locals and visitors. Improved donation flows and adding new changing rooms has made the shop operation smoother and more efficient for everyone.
Wastebusters’ partnership with events continues to go from strength to strength: including the trial of a food scraps collection from vendors. And our Recycle team did the huge job of relabeling all our events recycling bins to align with national recycling colours, making it easier for event-goers to know what to do. Wastebusters recycling trucks continue to be a much-loved presence in town servicing our 408 business customers, with the team doing a great job of keeping our aging fleet serviceable, in line with our kaupapa of keeping resources in use for as long as possible.
Our Reduce team has continued to deliver exceptional impact, with more than 11,000 people engaged in person through our education and engagement in the community. The Resourceful Communities programme inspires our community to take action and builds the knowledge and know how to engage in areas like repair, low waste living and textile waste diversion. It is proudly supported by QLDC’s zero waste district’s programme which recognises the impact of community connection for zero waste action.
We were stoked to join Environment Hubs Aotearoa, and we look forward to collaborating with this network and amplifying our collective impact on environmental action and resourcefulness across Aotearoa.
We worked with an impact consultant to implement an evaluation framework and behaviour change model to better plan, deliver and measure our impact, and have begun rolling out our learnings across all our programmes.
It was a busy year in advocacy, starting with participation in QLDC’s Waste Management and Minimisation Plan process. We appreciated QLDC’s approach in bringing Wastebusters and other stakeholders in early in the process, which has resulted in a constructive plan for the next six years. Wastebusters has also made submissions on national and local level, including The Right to Repair Bill, the Container Return Scheme and the publicly notified resource consent for McDonald’s in Wānaka.
Ultimately, this year has been about delivering impact while building the foundations for a much larger and even more impactful operation, securing Wastebusters’ future for our community. The heart of our work remains resource recovery and community engagement, and we enter the next 25 years of zero waste leadership with great confidence, welcome community support and an unwavering focus.
Gina Dempster
General Manager
November 2025
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