Southland has hit just 20 percent of its solid waste targets over the past year, new information has revealed.

The amount of curbside rubbish going to the tip was higher than expected while recycling levels were lower, a report prepared by Invercargill City Council showed.

Council group manager infrastructure Erin Moogan said at a meeting this week that measures such as bin inspections were “cleaning up” recycling, but did not reduce the large volume of waste people sent to landfill.

“We’ve got some targets there to reduce what goes to landfill, but at this stage we are not meeting those.”

Council group manager finance and assurance Patricia Christie also pointed out remediation work at old landfills had impacted the final quarter, with that waste transported to AB Lime.

The region hit just one of its five key performance indicators for the year ended June 2025 — a target of 30 percent for diverting waste from the dump.

During that period, a total 21,037 tonnes of curbside waste was sent there - the equivalent weight of 36 fully-loaded Airbus A380s - eclipsing a 17,000 tonne target.

A regional discard target of less than 650kg of waste per person, per annum, was exceeded by 80kg per person, but the report noted this was impacted by remediation at Little Tahiti and Ocean Beach landfills.

Material collected for recycling totaled 4,620 tonnes — just 30 tonnes under target — and a per-person goal of 54kg recycled material fell short by 4kg.

The report also noted the recycling bin inspection programme could be having a positive impact.

In February, the council announced it was introducing a new “three-strikes” system to clamp down on non-recyclables ending up in the wrong bin.

The report said contamination rates had dropped from 18 percent to 16 percent from 2023/24 to 2024/25.

The council previously said almost $340,000 was spent redirecting waste to the tip from recycling bins in 2023 - 24.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air