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Whangaparāoa Community Recycling Centre is now known as the Zero Waste Whangaparāoa Recycling Hub.
The centre became part of the Localised network in December 2024. Localised is the commercial arm of Zero Waste Aotearoa, a network of 126 community enterprises across the country working toward zero waste.
The organisation supports community-led resource recovery and reinvests revenue into the network to help drive legislative change.
Localised operation manager Carla van Walen, operations manager at, says the network was set up around eight years ago to support communities struggling with setting up local recovery initiatives.
“Things like procurement, governance, health and safety, and finding capital to get projects off the ground were real barriers,” she says.
Localised works primarily through joint ventures and currently operates six sites around the country. In Auckland, these include Less Waste Mahurangi, Onehunga Zero Waste and Tāmaki Zero Waste.
When the opportunity came up to take over the Whangaparāoa site, Carla says the previous operator needed support, and Localised stepped in.
“We officially took over on December 1. Since then, we’ve focused on improving health and safety, and started collecting reusables to send to our Wairau site.”
The hub also now accepts whiteware, which is either degassed or repaired if possible.
“We know we’re not locals, so we brought in a kaitiaki group to guide us,” Carla says. “They’re involved in any changes made on site. The community voice matters here.”
One early change was opening the site earlier at 8.30am. Carla says there’s still plenty of capacity and encourages more Coast residents to use the service.
“The more we can create behaviour change, the better. We want people to come in – and we can expand if needed.”
She says it starts in the kitchen, by sorting waste and setting up home systems.
“It’s about understanding the waste hierarchy, what you’re buying, and how you’ll dispose of it. We get so much polystyrene – it can be recycled, but producers also need to take responsibility.”
Plans for the future include a new education space, a commercial kitchen, a reuse shop, and more recycling drop-off options.
“We’re also looking at working with local people running small social enterprises, helping them upcycle materials and get the support they need to sell their work.”
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