FEATURE
Hot demand for construction board made from packaging waste
Tim Marshall, Senior Account Director, Wright Communications
New Zealand builders can now replace plywood, particle board and plaster board with low carbon, environmentally sustainable construction boards made from everyday packaging waste. Used beverage cartons, soft plastics and coffee cups are all being converted into saveBOARD building products.
The waste-to-building material technology has been brought to New Zealand by saveBOARD, whose first plant has just opened at Te Rapa near Hamilton. The factory will divert up to 4,000 tonnes of waste from landfills every year to produce 200,000 construction boards. saveBOARD makes an impact resistant board with similar performance to plywood, oriented strand board (OSB) and particle board that can be used for interior and exterior applications. The technology to make the boards was developed in the United States, where it’s been widely used for more than a decade. Tesla chose the membrane roof substrate for its 200,000m2 Gigafactory in Nevada. The Tesla roof equates to upcycling 2,000 tonnes of composite plastics and saves 336,000 kgs of embodied CO2 compared to using plywood. Paul Charteris, saveBOARD Co-Founder and CEO, says making high-performance, low carbon building materials using 100% recycled materials from everyday waste is a game-changer for sustainability in the construction industry.
Moons align to create demand Since the initiative was announced in March, enquiries and demands from architects and construction companies have gone through the roof. More than 300 companies are lining up to buy saveBOARD
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The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand
products, with one company wanting to take 25% to 30% of its production capacity. Charteris says the moons have aligned to create real demand for this new product: COVID-19 has affected the international
supply chain creating a shortage of imported building materials James Hardie has closed a division in
New Zealand, exacerbating this shortage Unable to spend their money on
international travel, New Zealanders are splashing out on home improvements A housing increase means there was
existing high demand for building materials Climate change means architects and
building companies are looking for every opportunity to specify or use low carbon building materials. “Each year, more than 400,000 tonnes of packaging waste are sent to landfills. Packaging material is a highly engineered product that is a resource we can upcycle into a circular building product. “Everything that goes into saveBOARD is locally sourced, so there is no importing from China. It is made right here in Hamilton from post-industrial and consumer packaging waste material received from large food and beverage companies — such as Fonterra and Frucor — that want to meet ambitious waste reduction targets.