Rangatira Annual Report 2025 - Flipbook - Page 18
Rangatira Investments
Private investment
Northland Waste
Northland Waste has an endearing and enduring quiet
obsession with looking after their customers. Going the extra
kilometre is not something spoken about, but something done.
Investment date
Ownership interest
2024 25%
More than twenty years ago, an unlikely and chance
meeting between a pragmatic contractor with a
head for business and a marine biologist grew into
something quite surprising–a waste care company with
a difference–Northland Waste. Colin Cashmore and Ray
Lambert made reluctant interviewees for this article,
preferring to remain private and out of the spotlight.
A Kiwi company at heart, Northland Waste are leaders
in honest, local and affordable waste and recycling.
They operate from Kaitaia to the Puhoi Tunnel and
have two other brands: Econowaste in West Auckland
and the Hibiscus Coast and Low Cost Bins serving the
lower North Island. The team now number more than
500 people and 150 dedicated rubbish trucks, along
with skip bin hire, wheelie bins, jumbo bags and tailored
commercial collections offered.
The company balances a strong internal culture, a nose
for good business and a quiet obsession for looking
after customers, all underpinned by a genuine belief
in community.
Northland Waste see themselves as ‘integrators’,
rather than ‘polarisers’ when it comes to matters
of the environment. Greenwashing isn’t an option.
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The leadership style at Northland Waste is all
about empowering people, not ‘managing’ them.
Unapologetically, mistakes are celebrated for what
can be learned from them, not what might have
been avoided. Different from other more structured
businesses, their middle management is deeply
grounded. “Imagine a corporate suit trying to manage
a bunch of blue-collar workers…” Naturally, there’s a
competitive spirit not too far beneath the surface and
a respect for difference between teams and locations.
Delightfully, one of their loyal and long-term drivers
who shall remain nameless, famously cancelled a
date-night dinner with his wife and instead took her
out to help deliver bins to customers.
“A percentage of bag sales go to hospice and at-risk
youth work. It’s all part of what we are” Many of the
team are the first into employment after two or three
generations out of work. They also have an ex-lawyer
who ‘saw the light’ in becoming a ‘dustman’. Community
is part of who they are at Northland Waste. There’s a
balance here at play–what’s good for people and their
communities is also good for business.
