Food Scraps Collections in New Zealand: What Goes in the Green Bin

Food makes up roughly a third of the average New Zealand rubbish bin. Buried in landfill it rots without oxygen and produces methane, a greenhouse gas around 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century. Diverting it is the single biggest climate win available in household waste, and the national waste strategy requires larger urban councils to offer food scraps collections to households by 2027.

There is a household bonus too. Once the wet, smelly material leaves the rubbish bin, what is left is dry and odour-free — the reason several councils can move rubbish to fortnightly collection once a weekly food scraps service is in place.

Auckland: a 23-litre food scraps bin with a locking lid, rolled out to urban households from 2023 and collected weekly on the same day as your other bins. It takes all food — cooked or raw, meat, fish, bones, dairy, citrus, coffee grounds and eggshells — but no garden waste, which needs a separate paid green waste service or home composting.

Christchurch: the green-lidded 240-litre organics wheelie bin has run since 2009 and takes food scraps and garden waste together, collected weekly. Grass clippings, prunings and weeds share the bin with plate scrapings and vegetable peelings.

Elsewhere: Hamilton, Tauranga and a growing list of districts run food scraps or combined organics services, while other councils are building toward the 2027 requirement. If your area has nothing yet, check the council website — rollouts are announced suburb by suburb.

Every New Zealand food scraps service accepts the same core list: fruit and vegetable scraps, meat and fish including bones, dairy, bread, rice and pasta, coffee grounds, tea bags and plate scrapings. The exclusions are just as consistent:

• No plastic bags or packaging of any kind.
• No 'compostable' or 'biodegradable' plastics unless your council names them — most processing plants cannot break them down.
• No nappies, pet waste or kitty litter.
• No liquids, cooking oil or large amounts of fat — wipe pans with paper towel instead.
• No garden waste in food-only services like Auckland's, and no soil, rocks or big branches anywhere.

Unsure whether your green bin takes garden waste as well? The kerbside colours guide explains the different models councils use.

Most councils supply a small kitchen caddy for the bench or under the sink. Empty it into the kerbside bin every two or three days — a caddy that is emptied often never has time to smell. In summer, a sheet of newspaper or paper towel in the bottom absorbs liquid, and a sprinkle of baking soda keeps odours down.

Liner rules vary. Some councils accept certified compostable liners, others prefer newspaper or nothing at all — check before buying a roll of 'green' bags, because the wrong liner contaminates the load. Keep the kerbside bin's lid locked shut, store it in the shade if you can, and put it out the night before: collection trucks often start before 7 am.

Collected food scraps are shredded, screened for contamination and processed at commercial composting or anaerobic digestion plants. Composting turns them into soil conditioner used on farms, orchards and council parks. Anaerobic digestion goes further: the scraps rot in sealed tanks, the methane they produce is captured as biogas for energy, and the remaining digestate still becomes fertiliser. Either way, the nutrients return to the soil instead of generating landfill gas for decades.

A compost bin or heap handles vegetable scraps and garden waste but struggles with meat and dairy. A worm farm processes fruit and vegetable scraps year-round on a balcony or in a garage. A bokashi bucket ferments everything — including cooked food, meat and dairy — in a sealed container, and the pickled result can be dug into the garden. Any of the three will shrink your rubbish bin by a third, and a free BinMinder reminder will make sure whichever bins you do have are always out on time.