12/05/2026
This week Sandra and I had the chance to attend the NZ Land Treatment Collective Conference.
It was one of those conferences where you walk away realising just how quickly the wastewater space in NZ is evolving.
One of the biggest talking points was the proposed move toward new wastewater-to-land standards and what that could mean for the industry over the next few years.
At this stage, I think it’s fair to say there’s still a lot of anticipation around how this will all play out in the real world. We don’t really have many examples yet of projects going through the new consent pathways or consent renewal processes, so a lot of the discussion right now is still theoretical to a degree. There are also some obvious gaps and grey areas within the standards themselves that sound like they’ll need supporting guidance documentation over time.
Importantly, these standards are really aimed at much larger treatment plants and publicly owned infrastructure. They’re not necessarily targeted at your average privately owned onsite system. But regardless, changes at that level will inevitably have a downstream effect on the wider wastewater industry as a whole.
A huge focus throughout the conference was nutrient removal. Not just “because it sounds good”, but understanding where it’s actually appropriate and where it genuinely improves environmental outcomes. There was some really interesting research presented around nutrient removal through dripline land application systems and it’s pretty clear the industry is heading toward far more evidence-based decision making.
Another thing that stood out was just how important onsite wastewater expertise is becoming. Design, monitoring, reporting, land capability, compliance, long-term environmental performance — the level of scrutiny around wastewater systems is only increasing.
The days of “whack a tank and a deep bore in and forget about it” are well and truly gone!
There was a good mix of engineers, scientists, regulators, designers, installers and operators all bringing different perspectives from real-world NZ conditions and projects, which made for some pretty honest and practical discussions.
Overall, it feels like the industry is heading toward a more performance-driven and environmentally accountable future, but there’s still a fair bit to work through before everyone fully understands what that looks like in practice.
