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Recycled timber sales, a tool library and bulk compost could soon be available at the Less Waste community recycling centre near Snells Beach.
Mahurangi Wastebusters Trust chair Simon Barclay said Less Waste was now able to go into 700 red-stickered houses around Auckland and take away unwanted but reusable timber.
“We’ve bought a de-nailer, as building companies can go in and have first dibs at what they want and what they don’t want are a lot of the big bits of wood with masses of nails in them,” he told a Matakana Community Group meeting last month.
The plan is to set up a dedicated timber yard area at the Lawrie Road site over the next few months to sell the reclaimed wood.
Barclay said the new venture would not only keep perfectly good construction timber out of landfill, it would be a lot cheaper than new wood for builders and DIY-ers, and it should create a healthy income stream for Less Waste.
“We’ve got a sinking lid grant from Auckland Council and we have to make ourselves financially viable in the next three years,” he said.
“If we get the wood right, we could do that. There’s a massive demand from builders to get rid of all this stuff, as well as from people to buy it.”
He added that a tool library was also being established, simply because so many tools were brought in that were still perfectly usable after minimal repairs or maintenance. It is hoped that will be open in the next few weeks.
Less Waste is also trialling an expansion of its existing compost-making activities by utilising unused skip and hook bins, although general manager Mark Gane stressed this was still very much at the experimental stage.
“We already sell compost in the shop in 20-litre bags,” he said. “If this new method works, we’ll be able to add bulk sales.”
He added that once a timber yard could be established, that would also free up extra space at the Less Waste shop and be more efficient by reducing double handling.
