The Sorting Depot, Commercial Waste Recovery

It is located at 31 Colson Road in New Plymouth, on the old site of the New Plymouth Transfer Station. (The transfer station has moved to a new location further along Colson Road.)

It’s for waste transporters, skip companies, construction and demolition firms, manufacturers and businesses. Businesses will need an account to access the facility to dispose of waste. If you are a business and would like to sign up for an account, please get in touch with us at TheSortingDepot@npdc.govt.nz.

The facility is not be open for public drop-offs. For public drop-offs and home clear-outs, please go next door to The Junction and the New Plymouth Transfer Station.

The Sorting Depot accepts usable building materials and fixtures, as well as concrete and rubble, untreated timber, usable lengths of treated timber, and metals, cardboard, recyclable plastic and tyres. Over time, we also plan to develop markets and processing equipment for plasterboard/gib, soft plastics, polystyrene, and other materials.

Please see the table below for waste acceptance criteria and banned items.

Acceptable waste includes, but is not limited to, materials that:  

• Contain no asbestos, and
• Are suitable for sorting, being free of liquids, putrescible (e.g. green or food waste, or soil) or hazardous material, and
• Are uncompacted – transported loose in skip bins, bulk transporters (e.g. those servicing flexi-bins), hook bins or similar containers, and
• Are not contained in bags or otherwise held together in a way that will make it difficult to separate or identify material through visual inspection.  

Acceptable waste may contain variable proportions of recoverable materials and landfill waste. Loads that are assessed at the weighbridge as containing no recoverable materials may not be accepted.  

The Sorting Depot may also accept loads that are comprised of a single recoverable material as defined in the table below. Note: this may be reviewed from time to time as new markets for recoverable materials are identified.  

The presence of prohibited waste, i.e., material that does not meet the acceptable waste criteria noted above, in a load deposited at the site will result in the entire load being defined as prohibited waste. Any load containing prohibited waste will incur a non-compliant load fee. 

Please see table below for fees and charges. Note: this is a commercial waste sorting facility for account customers only - no public access.

Yes, if you’re a business and a customer of The Sorting Depot then you can bring pre-sorted loads of accepted materials in without them being sorted. We welcome this, and have provided a cheaper price to encourage pre-sorting where it’s possible.

Currently, 60 per cent, or about 45,000 tonnes, of the waste we send to the landfill is commercial and industrial waste.

There were limited options for the diversion of many commercial and industrial waste materials locally, meaning that disposal to landfill was often the cheapest and most convenient option for businesses. Conversations and surveys with construction companies and other businesses showed that the time and space to sort materials on their sites were also key barriers to them reducing waste.

Waste collectors also called for this facility in order to make local collection streams viable, establish local recycling markets and consolidate recyclable materials and landfill waste more cost effectively.

We aim to divert 5,000 tonnes of valuable materials through the facility in its first year (from July 2023), with the goal to grow that increasingly over time as more businesses send their waste to the facility.

The facility will also develop six new jobs and benefit a range of local businesses who support reuse and recycling.

Of the $1.197m construction cost, the Ministry for the Environment paid $420,550 through a Waste Minimisation Fund grant, with the rest coming from NPDC’s Solid Waste Development Fund. Operation costs are met by user charges.

If you have friends or family who are builders, you can encourage them to use the facility for their building skips. Or if you’re carrying out a home build or renovation, ask your builder and waste contractor to take your skips to the facility so they can be sorted for reuse and recycling.

If you work in a business that is having a clear-out, fit-out, or building or office renovation done, you can also request that your waste collector drops materials to the commercial waste sorting facility instead of sending them to the landfill. 

Please get in touch with us on TheSortingDepot@npdc.govt.nz.