13/11/09 - Mildura Weekly
www.sunraysiaonline.com.au
Two men met for the first time in Mildura this week, and as GRANT MAYNARD discovered, it was truly a meeting of the minds. Both passionate about recycling, the pair found a lot of common ground in their ideas about how we can tackle the world’s mammoth plastic waste problem head on, and it could well be a Mildura-based technology that holds the key...
‘Green’ light needed on waste action IT could well be that a Mildura-based recycling technology is the key to tackling one of the world’s most pressing waste challenges – what to do with all that plastic? It is everywhere – in our cities and towns, in our forests, clogging our waterways and polluting the oceans. It’s a big problem that needs solving... and fast, so when permaculture and sustainable living teacher Steve Cran met Ausplaztik recycling guru Chris Curran this week it was hard to keep up. You could say they made me ‘green’ with envy... these blokes are really switched on when it comes to practical, grassroots initiatives to save the environment. Steve had a head full of every day ‘green’ challenges – the legacy of his many years of teaching sustainable living practices both here and overseas. Chris, on the other hand, was able to offer solutions from amongst the growing stable of recycled plastics product that his Etiwanda Avenue factory turns out. It was truly a meeting of two like-minded souls. As fast as Steve came up with questions that needed an environmentally
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• LIKE-MINDED: Ausplaztik’s Chris Curran, left, and Steve Cran talk recycled plastic products, and their many applications, during a factory tour this week. They are pictured with the company’s new planter box. sustainable answer, Chris was ready to show him the solution. A case in point was Ausplaztik’s slender, recycled plastic posts – created specifically to replace the more traditional steel ‘star post’.
Steve contended that the steel posts are heavy – increasing transport costs and creating handling challenges particularly in rough terrain – and expensive. Chris countered by showing Steve his com-
pany’s light, competitively priced recycled alternative. It is driven into the ground the same way, but is way easier to handle and will last longer! It makes a great fence post or tree stake, Chris explained.
Steve was also intrigued with Ausplaztik’s plastic ‘timber’ and the many uses it could be put to, like the display planter box made from sleeper-like plastic planks. Solar - PoweredPage 16 • Continued
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