The Waste Exchange has diverted the equivalent of one million litres of rubbish from landfills in the past year. Register your waste or resource need on The Waste Exchange Website or phone us on 0800 NO THROW (0800 668 4769).
What is the Waste Exchange?
The Waste Exchange is a free ‘waste brokering’ service funded by Environment Waikato and local councils, whose aim is to match waste users with waste re-users. The Waste Exchange assists businesses in finding markets for their industrial by-products, surplus materials and waste.
The aim of the Waste Exchange is to conserve energy, minimise resource use and reduce the need for landfill space. Products that have been successfully diverted from landfill include plastic, material, timber, computers, organic wastes, and unused chlorine. Other products have proved to be a considerable challenge, for example non-absorbent blue cloth and a concrete/wood residue.
How the Waste Exchange works
The Waste Exchange has its own computer database of businesses that require waste materials and those businesses wishing to be rid of waste. From this information, successful waste exchanges are matched. Those that can’t be matched are usually advertised locally.
The Waste Exchange proposes to:
- register your waste product confidentially
- promote it through the media
- try to find a market for your product
- keep you informed
“The service is available to all businesses but we try not to promise we will have a solution overnight. Knowing that a business has something that could be useful to someone else is a fantastic starting point.”
Successful waste exchanges
Happy pigs and worms
Asado Foods of Tauranga, which makes vegetable and chicken stocks, had tonnes of cooked vegetables they needed to dispose of weekly.
Through networking, the Waste Exchange contacted Cobi Thomson who has a small worm farm in Katikati. He also works for Power Organics Bay of Plenty, which has a huge worm farm. Power Organics was able to use the full one to two tonnes of cooked vegetables and some chicken stock. The deal will be an ongoing partnership to reuse what was once waste.
Materials underfoot
Several flooring companies are registered with The Waste Exchange in both Bay of Plenty and the Waikato. Flooring waste products include vinyl samples, carpet and rubber underlay offcuts, cardboard and plastic carpet cores, and carpet bags. The plastic carpet cores (2 m or 3.6 m length and 100 mm wide) have been reused in some interesting ways:
- Hamilton’s Fish City takes 30 of the cylinders every six months to safely transport fishing rods overseas. Fish City staff say these plastic cores are free, prevent crushing and take up less bulk than other ways of packaging their products.
- A local small block holder in the Waikato acquired 40 cores to use for drainage on his farm. As a result, this farmer has been able to collect rain water from roofs and control boggy ground on his farm.
Bud’s Birdhouses
Bud Calder, a retired workshop teacher from Hamilton, uses the Waste Exchange to source material for building designer birdhouses to sell.
“The birdhouses are ornamental and are a huge hobby interest in America,” he says. “The Waste Exchange gives me information to access any number of waste products I can use such as wood, plastics and cardboard.”