Construction waste turned into school office
A group of teenagers have transformed their school’s old storage room into a refurbished sports office using leftover material from several construction sites across Auckland.
Ben Dalton and Will Sims of Auckland’s Westlake Boys High School were among a group who built their own sports office while their school gymnasium was being renovated, using recycled materials in an attempt to help reduce the amount of construction waste that ends up in landfills.
According to Auckland Council, construction and industrial waste makes up about 85 per cent of the city’s landfill.
The students used the app CivilShare, which works like Trade Me, but solely for construction waste.
The boys spent hundreds of hours and their school holidays on the six-month project, which was led by their distance running coach.
‘‘I thought it would have been quite cool to help out [because] we needed another one since our old gym was being taken down,’’ Sims said.
Dalton said it was a frustrating process which involved levelling out the floor, laying down the carpet and building the storage cupboards, but impressing the headmaster and their parents with the end result made their efforts worth it.
‘‘Maybe I’ll start a business building doors and selling them on Trade Me,’’ Dalton quipped.
Sims said none of the parents thought it would turn out as well as it had.
‘‘It taught me basic DIY skills and that if you mess up you can always improve,’’ Sims said.
‘‘This was the biggest thing I’ve ever worked on and it was cool to see it all finished.’’
Regan Burke and his brother created CivilShare about two years ago.
Burke extended his mortgage and invested $80,000 of his own money into the app.
He also runs his own construction company and wanted to create an app that would help address the industry’s waste issue.
His company spent about $100,000 a year throwing out excess treated timber, Burke said.
‘‘If people bought the extra timber, that $100,000 cost could turn into a $20,000 profit for us.’’
Last year the council invested $50,000 into the app through its Waste Minimisation Innovation Fund.
The council set up the fund in September 2017 to support businesses finding ways to reduce waste and help with its goal to become a zero-waste city by 2040.
The free app had not been advertised but had garnered about 1400 users through word of mouth, Burke said.
So far about 60 per cent of trades on the app had been for free material.
The Burkes hope 2019 will be a big year for the business, as they look to expand the features on the app, and find ways to make the venture profitable.
He said adding larger construction companies to the platform and charging a fee to download the app were next on the cards.
‘‘This was the biggest thing I’ve ever worked on and it was cool to see it all finished.’’ Will Sims