If you need to dispose of birds and potentially infectious waste materials following an outbreak of H5N1 on your poultry farm, it is important to ensure your methods of disposal minimise any spread of the disease or adverse environmental effects by following national requirements and the relevant rules for Otago.

In most instances the most appropriate means of disposal of infectious waste will be composting or on-site burial.

Composting is a permitted activity if you can meet Council's requirements. This means you don’t need a resource consent.

For on-site burial, you will need a resource consent. We recommend you apply for consent early as part of your response planning.

MPI has teamed up with the Egg Producers Federation and PIANZ to provide free support for egg and poultry farmers with H5N1 bird flu readiness and response preparation. You can access resources to support your response planning at their website. https://birdflu.pianz.org.nz/ 

Under the Waste Plan for Otago there is no permitted activity that would apply to the burial of both dead animal matter (birds and eggs) and the other potentially infectious waste material that will need to be disposed of in an outbreak, such as bedding and manure from chicken sheds.

The Waste Plan includes rule 7.6.5 which provides for the disposal of dead animal matter into offal pits on production land (subject to meeting the rule’s permitted activity criteria); and rule 7.6.8 which provides for the disposal of waste generated on the farm to a farm landfill (subject to the rules permitted activity criteria); however these rules do not allow for the disposal of both dead animal matter and other potentially infectious waste material together.

To allow for the burial of both the birds and other waste material to the same site, consent would be required under rule 7.6.1 for the discharge of contaminants to land.

If you need any assistance completing your resource consent application, please contact consents.enquiries@orc.govt.nz

Our consents team are available to assist you over the phone, via email or we can visit you on-site.

Composting is a common method of carcass disposal used on poultry farms overseas. A well-managed composting operation can eliminate the influenza virus and produce a stable compost product in 28 days.

Rule 7.6.12 of the Waste Plan allows composting as a permitted activity if you can meet these requirements:

1. Any excavation is dug in a manner so as to avoid groundwater seepage into the pit; 

2. The activity is not undertaken within 100 metres, horizontally, of a well used to provide water for domestic purposes or drinking water for livestock; 

3. Any leachate produced from compost does not enter any water body;

4. The composting is not undertaken within 50 metres horizontally, of any river, lake, stream, pond, wetland or mean high water springs;

5. The composting is undertaken on the property from which the majority of the material is sourced; 

6. The composting does not cause a nuisance and is not noxious, dangerous, offensive, or objectionable beyond the boundaries of the property. 

7. Composting needs a lot of carbon (e.g. woodchips), which often is sourced from off-farm. This means that some farms using composting won’t be able to comply with requirement (e) of the above rule.

If you can meet all the requirements of the composting rule except for requirement (e), please contact consents.enquiries@orc.govt.nz to discuss your situation. You can request that your composting plan is a “deemed permitted activity”, which means that you would not need a resource consent.