A proposal for the 2026/27 financial year would see that cost jump almost 17% to $311 per tonne.

Of the $45 increase, $17 was attributed to covering the cost of depreciation, inflation, reduced waste quantities resulting in financial shortfalls, and a $5 increase in the Government’s waste disposal levy.

The remaining $28 of the “significant” price hike is the result of an increasing Local Disposal Levy.

That levy is charged by the Nelson City and Tasman District Councils to help cover the costs of their waste management and minimisation activities, including kerbside recycling and resource recovery facilities.

For the 2026/27 financial year, the two councils are seeking $3.9 million each for a total of $7.8m – $1.7m more than the year before.

Councillors from both districts who sit on the region’s joint landfill business unit were uneasy when presented with the scale of the landfill dumping fee increase on Wednesday, with Nelson’s Mel Courtney saying he was “uncomfortable” with the figure while Tasman’s Trindi Walker agreed that it was “unpalatable”.

York Valley Landfill. PHOTO: Max Frethey

The infrastructure heads for each council said that the increased local levy they sought was about covering the costs of managing solid waste and running minimisation schemes, such as recycling, after fiscal gaps had arisen.

Tasman District Council’s Richard Kirby, group manager for community infrastructure, said the councils were succeeding in reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, however that strained budgets which were dependent on income from dumping waste.

“The challenge now becomes, do we continue to fund the waste streams and the recycling waste minimization from revenue from landfill, or do the councils have to look at those?”

General manager for regional services Nathan Clarke, who oversees the landfill, also said the landfill was not out to make a profit and he couldn’t “tighten the belt” any further.

“We are in a position where the budget is tight and we’re not in a position to mitigate that increase to any measurable extent,” he said.

“We have not increased the cost of running the landfill. The cost is going up for things that we can’t control.”

Earlier in Wednesday’s meeting, the business unit recommended that the two councils agree to slash the fee for disposing Class 3 contaminated soil at the Eves Valley Landfill from $164 to $95 per tonne.

Doing so was expected to significantly increase the amount of material being disposed at Eves Valley, and therefore increase revenue, which would offset the impact of the local levy on gate fees at York Valley.

Clarke had also proposed running the landfill at a $300,000 deficit which was to be offset by draining the landfill’s remaining financial surplus to further limit the increase.

“I genuinely don't think that [Clarke’s] got any fat in the in the budget,” Nelson City Council’s Alec Louverdis, group manager infrastructure, told councillors.

“We’ve pushed him hard, I can assure you.”

The proposed fee will go to both councils for feedback before it would be adopted.

Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air