The team at Res.Awesome would like to draw our followers’ attention to a retailer in New Zealand making great strides towards a circular waste system. Mitre 10 have launched a new initiative designed to keep plant pots out of our landfills. Mitre 10’s Pot Recycle is a practical closed-loop solution designed to stop plant and seedling pots ending up in landfills.

This scheme has rolled out nationwide for your convenience! New Zealand has seen many kiwi’s fall back in love with gardening, partly due to lockdowns and more people working from home. We are stoked to see more kiwi’s spending time getting back to nature, with their hands in the dirt.

We are excited to see big companies like Mitre 10 doing their bit to reduce the amount of new plastic being used in Aotearoa. New Zealand must move away from producing and importing more plastic products, as the dire consequences of plastic pollution are already being felt by our waterways, marine life, fauna, flora and iwi. Mitre 10 sells more than 11 million plant and seedling pots every year yet most councils do not accept them in curbside recycling as they’re often contaminated with dirt.

Kiwi’s now have the opportunity to simply wash and return unwanted clean plant and seedling pots and labels made of plastic ID 5 to any Mitre 10 MEGA or Mitre 10 store. The pots need to be free from dirt or rubbish to avoid contaminating the recycling process; so ensure any goods you drop off at Mitre 10 have had a good scrub before you part ways with them.

When these products are returned to the Mitre 10 store you can count on them being shredded and then melted into resin. This process is enabled by their recycling partners Pact Group and Recycling Group. Once these products have been turned into resin, they are remoulded into new pots by the guys at Zealandia Horticulture.

Zealandia Horticulture first invested in its original injection moulding machine over 15 years ago. This technology has seen many bits of plastic recycled into new plant pots for well over a decade. The partnership with Mitre 10 delivers true product stewardship – old plant pots recovered and used to make new ones, over and over again. Pedro Wylaars, National General Manager for Zealandia Horticulture, says he’s excited to be involved in the sustainability journey Mitre 10 is on.

“We’re pleased to be supporting the Mitre 10 team as they bring Pot Recycle to their customers. We don’t have a direct-to-customer interface – Mitre 10 provides the public touch points that make it easy for people to recycle their old pots. And for every store in the co-operative to be involved in the programme is a great achievement.”

Mitre 10 aims to achieve a 20% return rate, equivalent to 184 tonnes recycling volume annually. Another key focus is to minimise the volume of goods unable to be recycled due to contamination. Community engagement with this scheme is a priority, so get the word out there team! Waste minimisation is also a key focus area of Mitre 10’s Sustainability Plan, which is helping the store network and supply chain operate more sustainably.

“Despite collective steps taken by the Government to lift the nation’s waste performance and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon circular economy, New Zealand remains one of the highest generators of waste per person in the OECD. We know our customers trust us to do the right thing and Pot Recycle is an initiative we are proud to bring to New Zealanders – one of many in the years to come,” says Fraser. “For Mitre 10, the search for better, smarter – and more sustainable – ways to do business never ends,” states Grant Fraser, Mitre 10 Chief Legal and Property Officer and executive sponsor for sustainability.

“As a co-operative, we are on a sustainability journey to make a real, sustainable impact on the environment and communities we are part of. New Zealand faces significant waste challenges. We want to help our customers by providing solutions that help them better deal with single-use plastic waste. Both Government and Kiwis want solutions and Pot Recycle provides the infrastructure to help address this, ensuring these pots are properly recycled.”

The way forward for Aotearoa will depend on communities working together and drawing on all kinds of technologies to ensure no resource goes to waste. New networks will need to be built, new partnerships discovered and new employment pathways will need to be created. Mitre 10 and their work alongside Pact Group, Recycling Group and Zealandia Horticulture are an incredible example of how kiwi ingenuity can help us forge ahead into our Zero Waste future. A circular waste economy is possible and we are really inspired by this mahi!

xx

Researched + written by Erin Cox

Edited by Fi Clements