The 2023/24 year saw Wastebusters reap the benefits of focusing energy and resources on our Wānaka operations and business income streams. The completed rectification and shut-down of the Alexandra site allowed personnel and financial resources to be targeted at achieving some big strategic goals for the business, including team enhancement and growth.
Significant personnel changes included welcoming Gina Dempster as GM in November 2023. Gina has made a big impact during her first months in the role. In addition, the appointment of a dedicated Operations Manager for the Wānaka site has moved things up a gear, with improvements in the team’s working environment and an improved customer experience.
Fiscally, we achieved a successful year, posting a small surplus in our annual financial performance, while still managing to expand our management team and maintain a living wage payroll.
Equally notable is the level of impact we are consistently demonstrating with respect to our mission and vision: promoting behaviour changes that foster a resourceful community; growing quality green jobs and working towards the evolution of a circular economy.
We had a big focus on the Wellbeing, Health and Safety (WHS) of our team this year, and the Board is delighted that great progress has been made in relation to implementing rigorous and meaningful systems that encourage staff to report accurately and follow-up with improvements that keep everyone safer at work.
We are waiting with interest and some excitement to explore the opportunities for rolling out the next phase of our Strategic Plan, subsequent to the QLDC’s purchase of the land adjoining the current Wastebusters site at 189 Ballantyne Rd.
While dependent on the Council’s processes and plans, we are hopeful that there will be some provision for a portion of this large land bank to be made available to Wastebusters for site expansion, improvements and some visionary projects.
The Board began the year with a governance workshop facilitated by Giselle McLachlan of Grounded Governance and also participated in two dedicated Strategy Review sessions during the year.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Friends of Wastebusters for their Director appointment process, which has resulted in a vibrant group with a broad skill set. Special thanks to all our Directors for the time and commitment they give so willingly to promote and uphold business success and impact, through our shared passion for Wastebusters values and mission.
Wastebusters has always been focused on delivering impact, and 2023/24 has been no exception. It’s been a year of investing in our Wastebusters whānau, strengthening the teams to ensure that we can continue to deliver without burning our people out.
Post-Covid, we added capacity into our Reuse Team to ensure we can cover sick leave and busy periods. Stepping up in roles, Chrissy Prender became the Lead Shop Supervisor and in support Simon McKenzie, Anna Dunphey, Else Strohmeier and Emma Ioannou all became Leading Hands.
We appointed Matias Romero to the Resource Recovery Manager, to support our on-the-ground work and progress our Wellbeing Health and Safety project. Having this role in place has been timely to navigate the challenges of the round-about roadworks on our doorstep for a year, on top of our normal operations. This has significantly affected our revenue, parking and regular routines for our staff and customers, especially drivers.
Our whole team has coped with the challenges with good humour and positivity. The same qualities were demonstrated by all our staff who participated in finalising the clean-up and handover of Alexandra site to Central Otago District Council, and I would especially like to recognise the work of Brendon Smith in that process.
Despite the roadworks, even more customers came through our reuse shop last year, with a record 126,000 transactions – an indication of our customers’ loyalty to Wastebusters and our district’s culture of shopping second-hand first. With so many visitors, our site is way too small and we desperately need more space to continue to divert waste from landfill and provide our community with the space to be resilient and connected.
Matias and the Reuse Team have also been laying the groundwork for site improvements to further streamline the handling process for reuse goods. The Recycle Team continued to provide support to our business and events customers with an outcomes-focused recycling service, sorting all materials by hand to ensure that we meet all recycling quality standards. Heather Chapman took on a supervisory role providing additional support to our busy recycling operations. Sophie Ward has been appointed to a new role as Business Development Manager. Her technical zero waste knowledge and relationships-based approach has meant that she has hit the ground running, conducting waste audits and supporting clients such as Millbrook, Queenstown Airport and Skyline to reduce their waste and improve their recycling systems.
We were stoked to be one of the four foundation hubs chosen nationally to design and deliver the new Every Bite food waste prevention programme, coordinated by Zero Waste Network Aotearoa.
Our Resourceful Communities programme, supported by the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s Zero Waste District programme, continues to support repair, slow fashion, refill and low waste living. A huge highlight for the team, and everyone who participated, was the Refashion show, which filled the Lake Wānaka Centre and inspired us all to embrace sustainable fashion and use it to express our creativity and individuality.
To deliver this work, we appointed Ruth Blunt as Communications and Behaviour Change Manager, overseeing the rapidly growing Reduce Team which included five new team members during the 2023/24 year, Toby Butland, Orla Ó Muirí, Jo Mills, Celine Van Der Eecken and Abi Hurford-Abel.
We are a community enterprise leading the way to zero waste. We educate, engage and keep resources in circulation to accelerate behaviour change and environmental actions.
Wastebusters exists to give our community a place to connect, learn and take action for the environment, before it’s too late.
Thriving communities and flourishing ecosystems protected by a zero waste, carbon neutral, circular economy.
Be resourceful
Keep our promises
Look after each other and our place
Have fun together
Our zero waste hub in Wānaka models the circular economy in action. We bring together practical solutions in our reuse shop and recycling services, with our reduce workstream to engage, educate and inspire, accelerating behaviour change and environmental actions. As a not for profit social enterprise our priority is the impact we make, and to help us accelerate the shift to a zero waste, zero carbon, circular economy, we created these three impacts:
We are proud to be a living wage employer with 55 employees. Our people are our super power, bringing fun and passion to our mission to drive change for our environment and our community. The path to a zero-waste, carbon-neutral, circular economy isn’t always easy, and the weight of our environmental responsibility can feel heavy at times. The wellbeing of our people is critical to achieving our vision, and we continue to strengthen our wellbeing health and safety practices through our whole team engagement strategy.
Guided by our core values, we’re proud to have a culture where you can bring your whole self to work. A kaupapa that celebrates diversity and dance moves, hard work and fun. A place where looking after each other and our planet is written into our values. Every day, we shift the dial towards a zero waste, circular economy and we can feel the momentum growing in our district and across the country.
The work of all our people accelerates this shift – from the passionate and fun loving people in our reduce, reuse and recycle teams to our incredible volunteer Board of Directors, and the Friends of Wānaka Wastebusters executive committee, who, like guardian angels, look out for our waka and our long term vision.
Wānaka’s top reuse shop Community sponsorship Reuse diversion Seasonal events C&D waste diversion Refill support
Strategy
People
Finance
Business consultancy
Resourceful Communities
Enviroschools & ZW Education
Dr Compost
Zero waste advice & expertise
Advocacy & community support
Bespoke recycling solutions
Business recycling
Events recycling
Community sponsorship
Next year Wastebusters will celebrate 25 years of leading the way to a zero waste, carbon neutral, circular economy and we have big plans for the next 25!
We’re taking bold steps to further position our district as a leader in the transition to a circular economy by transforming our current facilities into a flagship Circular Economy and Education Hub, complete with a full Resource Recovery Park. We’re calling it Wastebusters 2.0 and we’ll need your help to bring it to life.
Imagine a vibrant community-powered space where anything from construction material to designer dresses are given a second chance on life. A space for action takers and change makers, with practical waste minimisation solutions, expert advice, education and advocacy for a circular future.
Open seven days a week, you’ll find yourself popping in to drop off your pre-loved goods, before heading into our nature inspired Reuse Shop to find something you love.
Some days you’ll bring in your recycling and, thanks to the Government pressing play on a strong Deposit Return Scheme, our depot is up and running so you can make money back off the containers you bring us.
After wandering through our construction reuse area, you’ll find skilled repairers work alongside talented upcyclers, giving new life to everything from furniture to ski jackets. Maybe you’ll join for delicious low waste kai, engaging conversation and real life ways to incorporate environmental action into your day at our on-site Resourceful Communities events.
Your tamariki will love joining our Enviroschools facilitators for a tour of our Reduce, Reuse and Recycle operations. You’ll feel inspired to take action for the environment and a renewed sense of your role as guardian.
With Wastebusters 2.0 anything is possible as we aim to deepen our commitment to drive meaningful environmental change–empowering our community, inspiring sustainable practices, and leading the charge toward a world with less waste.
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
Let us know what you love & what we could do better & you’ll go into the draw to win a $250 restaurant voucher!