Solid Waste

Environmental Canterbury is preparing a rule on the discharge of solid domestic waste and farm refuse on rural land in the draft Natural Resources Regional Plan.   This draft rule sets out conditions for the use, siting and construction of refuse pits including the following: 

• Any new rubbish pit shall only be located where there is no territorial authority rubbish collection service, or refuse transfer station or landfill to which residents have access to within 10 kilometers of the property.
• Rubbish discharged into any pit shall only be from households or farming activities carried out on the same property.
• Offal and animal manure shall only be placed in the pit if the source of the offal or manure is the same property, the property is under 50 hectares in area and the farming activity does not involve intensive livestock farming (e.g. intensive poultry and pig farming).
• No petroleum products, industrial solvents, pesticides, agrichemicals or containers of these shall be discharged into any refuse pit.
• Any new pit into shall not be located within 100 meters of any surface water body or 50 meters of any property boundary or located in any area subject to inundation or flooding or surface ponding.
• Separation distances of 250 meters up-gradient in terms of groundwater flow and 100 meters in any other direction shall be maintained between wells (bores) and any new pit into which rubbish is dumped.
• Over confined aquifers there shall be a minimum confining layer of 1 meter between the bottom of any new pit into which rubbish is discharged and the uppermost confined aquifer.
• Over unconfined aquifers any new pit shall not be deeper than 3 meters above the maximum groundwater level anticipated by Environment Canterbury at the site.
• When any rubbish pit is filled or no longer used, the contents shall be covered to a depth of at least 0.5 meters with soil.
• The location of any pit to within an accuracy of 50 meters and marked on a map of the property of a scale of 1:50,000 or larger, shall be provided to Environment Canterbury within seven days of a request to do so.