Rubbish collection will continue to operate as normal throughout Southland but, for now, all recycling throughout Southland, Gore and Invercargill will be heading for the landfill. 

Senior waste officer at the Invercargill City Council Donna Peterson said it was alternate weekly rubbish and recycling collections as normal.

"We're asking people to just keep doing what they've been doing," she said.

However, all recycling will now end up in the landfill, until the lockdown is lifted, and recycling centres can return to normal operations. 

"Unfortunately, we couldn't maintain the safety of our staff," she said. 

"Because it's manual sorting, our team on the line would be physically touching every piece... so in the short term, our recycling is all going to the landfill," Ms Peterson said. 

She said WasteNet would not resume manual recycling until it had received the all-clear from the government that it could re-open. 

She said WasteNet also lacked the appropriate PPE (Personal Protective Gear) to give staff to ensure they were safe when sorting the rubbish. 

"We couldn't keep up with the PPE requirements, or even with the PPE gear requirements [we couldn't] confirm that everyone would be okay." 

She said the decision to close the facility was in line with what other councils in New Zealand had done which similar "manual processing lines" in the recycling facilities. 

Transfer stations throughout the district were also closed to green waste disposal.

Ms Peterson said councils were not discouraging people from doing their DIY projects around the garden during the isolation period, but they simply asked that people hold onto their green waste until the lockdown period was over.

"All we're asking for is that they need to manage the material on their properties until we can re-open as normal at our transfer stations," she said. 

"We will open the transfer stations when the government says that we're allowed to".

The Gore District Council, which had previously intended to continue offering restricted green waste disposal services, also announced that it would be closing the Gore Transfer Station to green waste effective from 5pm that evening. 

The Gore District Council said in a press release yesterday that it was following a directive from the National Crisis Management Centre. 

"Rubbish collection will continue throughout the COVID-19 response period. However, while people are free to undertake gardening or renovations during the Level 4 period, any waste should remain on site until the Level 4 period has ended."