Celebrating our love of clothes consciously and sustainably.
Wastebusters Slow Fashion Month invites us to rethink how we shop and wear our clothes — choosing with intention and ensuring every item is worn and loved for as long as possible.
Throughout March, we share inspiring and educational slow fashion content, host workshops, and celebrate creativity and conscious style. The month culminates in our much-loved annual Refashion Show, a highlight of Slow Fashion Month.
March: a new season and a time to change up the wardrobe as the chillier autumn days begin.
As you start to reconsider your outfits, it’s the perfect time to appreciate what’s in your wardobe and find new ways to wear your favourite pieces. Wastebusters created Slow Fashion Month in March to celebrate our love of clothes consciously and sustainably.
Refashion isn’t just a show; it’s a movement. Started in Wānaka through the Wastebusters Resourceful Communities Programme, Refashion is a community celebration of slow fashion. Each year, we shine a spotlight on stunning, original designs, made from sustainably sourced materials.
Our annual fashion event will be back again for 2026. Celebrating talented local conscious creators and sustainable designers. Join us in creating a fashion experience that leaves a lasting impression and a lighter footprint.
If you would like to sign up as a designer, model or for our popular moodboard section please get in touch with Abi at the link below.
Ask yourself:
Where was this made?
Who was this made by?
What is it made from?
Could I buy this secondhand?
It’s about following individual style instead of fast fashion trends. It’s the idea of investing in better quality garments that are made to last.
Choosing clothes made with love by companies that are ethical and fair to people, animals, and our planet.
Discover what was featured in the 2025 Refashion Show, from the incredible designers who brought pre-loved fashion to life to the creativity that made the night so special. Explore past collections, learn more about previous designers, and get a sneak peek at what’s in store for the 2026 Refashion Show.
Just step into our reuse shop to witness the bustling popularity of our clothing section. In Wānaka, it’s a badge of pride to receive compliments on your outfit and proudly respond, “Thanks! I got it at Wasties.”
There’s more to slow fashion than secondhand shopping, though. It’s about caring for and repairing the items you already own.
Don’t know how to fix something? Come along to one of our Repair Revolution events and learn how to give your clothes a longer life.
When your clothes finally meet their end, can you put them to use in a new form? Just because you can’t wear it doesn’t mean it needs to be ditched straight away.
Colourful queen of reuse Anna has mastered the art of shopping her style. From bold accessories to pattern clashes, Anna loves to experiment with layering fun colours and bold textures. Get Anna’s tips to making the most of your second-hand treasures in our blog.
Emma is the ultimate second-hand fashionista and reuse team icon. With a love for retro overalls and funky 70s patterns, Emma’s outfits are always fun and colourful, just like her personality! She shares her secrets to shopping at Wastebusters and finding those one-of-a-kind fashion gems.
Jessie not only buys secondhand clothes but also crafts stunning garments from repurposed materials. Her creations proved popular at last year’s Refashion Show, featuring funky shirts, patterned pants, colourful robes, and effortlessly cool bucket hats, all fashioned from textiles discovered at op shops.
Wastebusters’ Slow Fashion Month work is proudly supported by Queenstown Lakes District Council Zero Waste District Programme.
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!