How it all began, how it is today and a look into the future.
The story of Wastebusters began in 1999 when people living in Wānaka and Hāwea decided to take action to avoid sending all their waste to landfill. The community joined together to find a solution and in 2000, the Wānaka recycling centre and reuse shop on Ballantyne Road opened.
We brought recycling to the district almost 20 years ago, and in 2007, developed and launched the hugely popular Dr Compost programme that we still run today. We brought the Zero Waste Education and Enviroschools programmes to our district’s kura in the same year, and now engage with more than 15 schools annually.
We ran the Central Otago rural recycling collections, public drop off and a reuse shop in Wastebusters in Alexandra for 8 years until our lease on the site ran out (2015-2023). We continue to work strategically with the Central Otago community through our programmes in schools.
Since those early days, our impact has grown and grown, much like the region’s population, but we remain an impact-driven environment hub, a Wānaka landmark and the go-to for zero-waste, circular economy solutions.
Our Recycle Team collects and hand sorts recycling from local businesses and events. From weddings to Warbirds Over Wānaka, our team consistently recovers high quality recycling through their unique blend of on-the-ground engagement, and specialised hand sorting processes back on base.
Our on-site Reuse Shop has twice been voted the best shop in Wānaka. We have an amazing team that curates vibrant and colourful displays of the secondhand treasures that pass through our doors. We’re incredibly proud of the quality of the goods that we receive from the community and love seeing the treasures that locals and visitors alike find on our shelves and in the yard.
With well established practical reuse and recycling solutions humming along at our Wānaka site, our attention turned to growing our Reduce Team to increase our impact across the waste hierarchy.
We launched our Resourceful Communities programme in 2019, expanding our zero waste impact through repair, low-waste living, and slow fashion events, engagement campaigns, and research. In the same year we began delivery of the Queenstown Lakes district’s waste education and communications programme. In 2022, we established a pilot scheme to rescue outdated uniforms through rebranding as Re-Action. We’re excited to keep working on solutions to this unique problem.
We’re the go-to when it comes to circular economy thinking and solutions, and our aim is to bring our community along with us. The road to zero waste is one best travelled together and we see ourselves as a hub that helps everyone join the dots.
We’re proud supporters of organisations such as Plastic Free Wānaka who champion of SUCfree Wānaka, landfill bin-free Cardrona Alpine Resort, and the Food Security Nework keeping good food from going to waste.
Big things are on the horizon at Wastebusters! With the plans in motion of Wastebusters 2.0, we’re taking bold steps to position our district as a leader in the transition to a circular economy. Our vision includes transforming our facilities into a flagship Circular Economy and Education Hub, complete with a full Resource Recovery Park.
Through this expansion, we’re deepening our commitment to drive meaningful environmental change—empowering our community, inspiring sustainable practices, and leading the charge toward a world with less waste. Our vision is bright, and together, we’ll keep pushing for a more circular world!
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!