Piles of recycling built up outside the Queenstown Lakes District Council's Maungawera Rd refuse and recycling drop-off station on Wednesday night.
All the recycling bins provided by the council were full and many cardboard boxes, mostly filled with glass bottles, had been dumped around the site.
Contractors collected the recycling yesterday.
QLDC maintenance operations manager Erin Moogan said the drop-off stations were always heavily used at this time of year.
All had signs telling people what could and could not be left at the sites. Despite the signs, some people still used them as dumping grounds.
There had yet to be a ''wrap-up'' from contractors about whether this holiday period had been worse than last year for fly tipping at the stations, she said.
