Trade waste

• Any premises used or intended to be used for any industrial or trade purpose
• Any premises used or intended to be used for the storage, transfer, treatment, or disposal of waste materials or for other waste management purposes, or used for composting organic materials
• Any other premises from which a contaminant is discharged in connection with any industrial or trade process.
• Any other premises discharging sewage other than domestic sewage and includes any land or premises wholly or mainly used for agricultural or horticultural purposes.
• A tanker truck or any other vehicle capable of receiving, storing, transporting or discharging trade waste.

Examples of premises that may require a trade waste consent

• Retail food and all food processing
• Workshops - paint, motor, fabrication, electroplating
• Wash pads
• Dentists
• Tankered waste
• Printing
• Laundry and dry cleaning
• Service stations
• Beverage production
• Schools, childcare centres, retirement facilities
• Healthcare facilities

Please contact our trade waste team if you're not sure if your premise needs a trade waste consent.

If we require further information to be able to issue a consent, we'll contact you with details of what's required.

This could affect the timeframe for issuing a consent.

If all the information has been provided and the activity is considered to be within the permitted activity levels. We'll contact you to let you know.

You and your business will be put onto a register so we can do future checks to see if the business has changed over time.

No Trade Waste Consent is required.

If all the information has been provided and is acceptable, a Trade Waste Consent will be issued with conditions of operation.

If the proposed discharge contains prohibited wastes or the application and waste management plan are unacceptable, Council may decline the application.

This means that the waste cannot be discharged into the wastewater system.

The expiry date will be stated on the consent.

The consent must be renewed prior to the expiry date to allow the discharge to be legally discharged to the wastewater system.

Prior to the expiry date an invoice will be sent to you to start the renewal of the Trade Waste Consent.

This must be paid together with the required information submitted prior to the issue of the new Trade Waste Consent.

The duration of a consent is generally one year. You can request a longer expiry date if  we have good history of compliance with your  trade waste consent and your waste management plan.

• Submitting an updated Waste Management Plan annually and when changes that will affect the discharge are planned.
• Reporting of flows from the business on a regular basis. The consent will state how this will be measured and how often this needs to be reported.
• Undertake sampling, testing and reporting of the discharge characteristics after the treatment system.
• Do maintenance and cleaning of the treatment system.
• Do continuous monitoring of the discharge.
• Report any discharge that is non-compliant to council.
• Manage the stormwater that may enter the wastewater system from the site.

If you discover that you're not compliant, you must report it to Council within 15 minutes of the discovery.

We will investigate the non-compliance and discuss the cause and work on a solution with you.

If non-compliance continues Council may take enforcement action under the Trade Waste Bylaw. This can be either:

• suspension or cancellation of the Trade Waste Consent
• preventing the discharge from entering the wastewater system
• or legal action.

This includes direct inflow from rain or from overland flows

Our wastewater system is designed to accept the expected wastewater from the area. It's not designed to treat any stormwater entering the wastewater system. All stormwater should be directed to the stormwater system.

When stormwater enters the wastewater system, the capacity of the system is reduced and can lead to wastewater overflowing onto property or into the rivers or streams. This poses a health risk to the people where the overflow is onto properties.

For general businesses the treatment system will depend on the type of treatment required.

These must be designed by a suitably qualified person.

Other businesses will have common treatment systems where the size will depend on the operation and the flow of water through the treatment system.

See information on grease traps.

Grease traps are designed primarily for the treatment of wastewater from a retail food premises. The size of the grease trap will depend on the business operation. This is unique to every business.

Wastewater from the business is directed to the grease trap for treatment. This wastewater should be only from the operational areas of the business.

No other wastewater such as bathroom wastewater or stormwater, can go through the treatment system.

Grease traps are generally a 2 chamber system that's designed to remove fats, oils and grease from the wastewater through settling. The fats, oils, grease and solids will either float or sink in the grease trap removing these from the discharge.

Removing solids from the grease trap is important as this takes up space in the grease trap and means that more regular cleanout is required.

Removing the solids from the wastewater is done by installing sink screens to capture the solids. The sink screen must be a double layer fixed bucket type sink screen. This means that there is one fixed bucket that is installed into the sink or floor discharge point and there is another bucket screen that's removable to allow the solids captured to be collected and disposed of appropriately.

The purpose of the double system, is that it prevents solids entering the treatment system when the removable screen is removed and has not been replaced.

Grease convertors

Grease convertors use either a bacteria or enzyme to break down the grease in the tank. They require automated dosing on a regular basis to continue to do the work that they do. Their benefit is a smaller footprint but ongoing maintenance may cost more compared to grease traps.

Mechanical grease separators

Mechanical grease separators collect the grease from the day in the same way that a grease trap does, however, rather than being cleaned out on a regular basis the grease is removed by a mechanical means. An example is a system that heats the water to allow the grease to be extracted easily and then a chain is used to move the grease from the tank into a collection container on the outside. This collection container can then be disposed of in the solid waste stream.

Oil and grit interceptor

These are primarily designed to remove oil and grit from workshops or wash pads.  The size of the oil and grit interceptor depends on the business operation. This is unique to every business.

Wastewater from the business is directed to the oil and grit interceptor for treatment. This wastewater should be only from the operational areas of the business. No other wastewater from the bathroom or stormwater can go through the treatment system.

Oil and grit interceptors are generally a 2 chamber system that's designed to remove oils and grit from the wastewater through settling. The oils will float and the solids will sink removing these from the discharge.

There's several companies that provide treatment systems in NZ.  Either talk to local installers or search the internet to find an appropriate system.  The supplier should be able to advise you on the size and type of treatment system that you'll need to adequately treat your wastewater discharge.

Before you purchase any treatment system it's advisable to talk to our trade waste engineer to make sure it's acceptable. You'll need to provide the design information so the system can properly assessed for your business. This is recommended to avoid purchasing a treatment system that won't meet the required treatment for your trade waste consent.

If sampling is required in your consent, it's important to understand the type of sampling required. We list 3 types:

Grab sample

This is a sample taken at the time of sampling that is not at the start or the finish of the discharge cycle.

24 hour sampling

This is a representative sample taken over 24 hours at 15 minute intervals. This type of sampling requires an autosampler to collect the sample. If you don't have one, they can be purchased or hired from companies around New Zealand, or you can ask a laboratory who has an autosampler to set up the sampling for you.

Online/inline monitoring

This method requires a probe for the specific characteristic and a way of recording this data. This is commonly done via a System Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA).  Some probes have systems that allow the download of data from the probes’ head unit.  If you're required to do this type of monitoring, this will require an alarm system to notify when the discharge is out of compliance.

If you're a workshop, wash pad or a general trade waste, you'll be required to do your own sampling / testing.  It's the business owner’s responsibility to send through the results to Council on a regular basis as stated in your trade waste consent.

Retail food premises are sampled by Council or their representative. These samples are then tested and the result will be given to you.

We want to know where the solid waste from the business is going as it needs to go to an approved waste site.

Some solid wastes or the accumulated solids, fats, oil and greases need further processing to allow the waste to be disposed of legally.

This may include fats, oils and greases from retail food premises, oil and grit from an interceptor or solids from other business.

Other council consents that may be required for your business

• Alcohol licence
• Building consent
• Resource consent
• Food registration
• Footpath licence