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The Mower & Equipment Recycling Program Daniel Cleaver got going about a year ago isn’t just an environmental initiative, it’s a way to give back to the people who helped him get his chainsaw and mower business, up and running.
“I feel like the community really supported me. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have got to this point in my life and been successful and bought my commercial property. And now it’s flipped over, the community is struggling,” Cleaver says.
“We see a lot of customers come in that have lost their jobs and their stuff’s broken and I just say to [head mechanic] Glen Hodson, let’s help these people.”
Help could be in the form of fixing a lawn mower for someone in need but he also donates money he’s made from stripping parts to charities such as Harbour Hospice Warkworth Wellsford.
First and foremost though, Cleaver’s recycling project, which is separate from his business, is an initiative that’s “there to benefit the environment”.
No assignment, it seems, is too big or too small – it could be as simple as recycling hydraulic hoses dropped off at his yard or he might need to pull a broken-down digger out of the bush.
“A lot of people just abandon machinery in a paddock and it rusts away, or they bury it. Out of sight, out of mind, but the problem is still there. We’ll be digging down on a site and find tractor tyres and bicycles and then comes asbestos.
“I’m thinking, how do we stop this? Or how do I make a difference? How can I start doing something that’s going to benefit the environment in the long run?”
If his yard at Chainsaws and Mowers is anything to go by, Cleaver is doing more than his fair share, with boxes of parts, scrap metal, miscellaneous plastics, piles of tyres, two big bulldozers and a corroded engine block all on display.
Either dropped off to the yard by the public or salvaged by Cleaver and his team, nearly all of this flotsam and jetsam will eventually be recycled or restored and sold.
“Then you get a little bit of money back, which can go towards covering my mechanics’ time to strip it down. If we have a month where there was a profit, then we give that profit to a local charity that operates in the community.
“Or we could use that money to expand. At the end of the day, it’s like a not-for-profit organisation. We keep a record of what we’re doing so that people can see that we’re legitimately trying to help.”
Over the past six months the project has had “some serious traction”.
Cleaver recently sent out a newsletter to his customer base and reached out on Facebook to offer people an opportunity to recycle their old mowers as a way to contribute to the local community and promote sustainability.
He says in five years’ time “it could be a proper organisation”.
Given his enthusiasm for recycling, it’s perhaps not surprising Cleaver has been recovering and refurbishing things since he was a kid.
He built his first computer from 10 or so discarded computers that he had salvaged from the now-discontinued kerbside inorganic rubbish collection.
“I’ve always been technically minded and loved fixing machinery. I excelled at it better than other subjects anyway. They say you need to practice something for 10,000 hours to become an expert. I’m 38 now and I’ve been doing this since I left school,” he says.
Recycling remains a big part of his life and Cleaver says he just wants to get the community involved as much as possible, which makes sense. After all these are the people who helped kickstart his career.
And now he’s humming. Like a well-oiled machine.
If you’d like donate to the Mower & Equipment Recycling Program feel free to drop by Chainsaw and Mower Services at 17 Gumfield Drive, Warkworth or call 09 945 0090.
