Innovative Waste Kaikoura (IWK) is certainly living up to its name, with more and more useable and potentially marketable material being produced at the Scarborough St site.
The first stage of the glass recycling plant, a conveyor belt to sort the glass, has been in action since August and was made possible through funding from the Ministry of the Environment's Waste Minimisation Fund. The system is capable of sorting about one tonne of glass in 15 minutes.
A new glass crusher has been added to the mix and is now in operation, crushing as much as one tonne per hour. IWK manager has installed a couple of tumblers, which he is now experimenting with to produce varying grades of crushed glass and sand.
The uses for the product are numerous. Depending on the grade it could be used in golf course bunkers, children's play areas and swimming pool filters, as well as for sand-blasting, landscaping and building.
Since the arrival of the conveyor belt, which assists in sorting the glass by colour, Robbie has been thinking of what to do with the glass. The initial idea was to send it away to be turned into new bottles, but with the new crusher, the potential for on-site recycling has Robbie seriously excited.
"It's really cool to be closing that loop, from bottle back to sand," he says. "The hope eventually is to be able to create a revenue which in turn can be put back into targeting our biggest problem [at IWK] which is getting the organics out of the landfill."
Robbie is keen to hear suggestions.
