Where your waste actually goes
Most of what comes off your site is sorted and handled the right way for what it actually is — resold if it’s still useful, mulched if it’s clean and untreated, sent for licensed disposal if it’s treated, or sent back to the manufacturer for proper recycling. Here’s exactly how each material is handled, material by material.
How it’s sorted
The same three steps, whatever’s on the truck.
Collected from your site
Loaded onto the truck as-is, nails and all. Nothing needs pre-sorting before we arrive — that’s our job, not yours.
Sorted by material
Back at the yard, timber, masonry, plastics and metal are split out, every nail and fixing is pulled by hand, and treated or demolition timber is separated from plants before anything reaches the mulcher.
Reused, resold, recycled — or disposed of properly
Each material goes wherever is right for what it actually is — resale, the mulcher, a manufacturer take-back scheme, or licensed disposal if it’s treated.
Timber
Timber makes up most of what we collect, and what happens to it depends on what it is. In NZ construction, almost all new building timber is treated — so licensed disposal is the default for most pallets and offcuts.
Good, intact pallets are given away free to anyone who wants them. Broken or unusable ones, like most construction timber are sorted for licensed disposal.
De-nailed and listed on Trade Me and Facebook Marketplace, usually at a quarter to half of retail price. DIYers and small-job tradies buy it and collect straight from our yard.
Useful sizes are kept back rather than tossed out — a 500mm offcut, for example, makes a solid scaffolding sole board. What’s left is usually treated, like nearly all NZ construction timber, so it’s sorted for licensed disposal rather than mulched.
Old fences, posts, decking, weatherboard and anything treated (H3.2, H4), painted or glued are sorted out and taken to a licensed facility.
Branches, hedge trims and other green waste from clearing a site go into the mulcher, or off to compost where that’s the better fit — not landfill.
Why most site timber doesn’t go in the mulcher
Building timber in New Zealand is almost always treated with preservatives like CCA (copper, chromium, arsenic) or LOSP to stop rot and borer — that applies to standard framing, pallets and offcuts too, not just demolition timber. Demolition timber can also carry lead-based paint, stains or glue from engineered products like plywood and LVL. Treated wood shavings can leach heavy metals into soil and groundwater, which is why BRANZ and MBIE guidance rules it out. So treated timber which in practice is most of what comes off a build is sorted out at the yard and taken to a facility licensed to handle it properly. Mulching is reserved for the untreated exceptions and natural green waste.
Bricks, blocks & concrete
The second thing we collect a lot of, on almost every job.
Broken bricks, blocks and concrete are crushed down into hardfill. We list it on Trade Me and Facebook, and it’s popular with landscaping tradies for site prep, drainage and fill — instead of going straight to a landfill weighbridge.
Paint buckets
The third thing on the list, and the easiest to recycle properly.
Most of what we collect is plastic paint buckets — usually the common 10L size — empty or with leftover paint still in them. They go back through Dulux’s Paint Take Back service and Resene’s PaintWise programme, so leftover paint and packaging are handled properly instead of sitting in landfill.
Less landfill. Lower cost. Real reuse.
You want a cost-effective alternative to a bulky skip bin, and we want to keep usable materials out of the ground. By diverting and reselling what we can, we keep our prices lower for you—and give your old timber a useful second act.