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A revamp of strawberry growing operations at Charlies Gelato Garden has provided a good opportunity for recycling of materials.
Troughs for holding the hydroponically grown strawberries were falling apart and desperately needed to be replaced along with the structures that held them at waist-height for easy picking.
Charlies was faced with the prospect of buying 1000 new posts to support new troughs.
Fortunately, fencing contractor Malcolm Webster, of All Rural Fencing, knew just where those posts could be located.
In addition to the Charlie’s job, he was also contracted to clear the vines at Ti Point vineyard, along with the 2,000 posts and wires that supported them.
Although around 15 years old, the posts proved to be in good condition and entirely suitable to meet the requirements of the Charlies’ job. All that was required was that they be cut to the appropriate length and put back into the ground.
Malcolm says naturally recycling makes sense, since it avoids unnecessary cutting down of trees to make new posts.
But he says although he has been recycling posts for years, the practice is not that common.
“Developers often have a digger that goes along, just smashes the posts and then pushes them into a heap. Then they have a disposal problem. Where are they going to get rid of them?” he says.
Traditional methods of removing posts are also unhelpful. Often a chain is wrapped around the post, which is then pulled out with a tractor, leaving ugly chain marks on the post.
Malcolm says ideally a machine known as a post hole lifter should be used, which when fitted to a front-end loader requires only a single operator to remove the posts. Posts are grabbed by the machine at ground level and are barely marked.
“Everybody having fences removed should be thinking about recycling,” he says.
