Future Post
Making fence posts from plastic waste.
Passionate about the environment, dairy farmer and former fencing contractor Jerome Wenzlick set up Future Post six years ago, to make fence posts and rails out of recycled plastic. In the 12 months to March this year, Future Post’s two factories – the original in Waiuku and a second opened a year ago in Blenheim – have diverted 2,200 tonnes of domestic and commercial waste plastic from landfills and turning that into fence posts, rails and now garden box kitsets.
Now the managing director of Future Post, Jerome hit on the idea of recycling a range of plastics into fence posts when he kept striking buried plastic - and breaking wooden posts - while attempting to install a fence on an old rubbish dump site. He had the revelation that if he could make a stronger fencepost from waste plastic, he would also be helping to solve a big environmental problem – the effective recycling of waste plastics.
Each of the plastic fence posts made at Future Post’s Waiuku and Blenheim factories contains over 20 kgs of plastic waste, depending on the size of the post. This is the equivalent of 250 milk bottles and 1,100 plastic bread bags in every #1 round farm post.
In the past year to March, he estimates Future Post has recycled more than 2,200 tonnes of domestic and commercial waste plastic including the difficult to recycle types 2, 4, 5 and 7 and of all colours.
“New Zealanders dump an estimated 380,000 tonnes of plastic every year – we rank poorly against other Western countries on a per capita basis,” he says.
“Of particular concern is flexible plastic packaging such as plastic film, bags, pouches and the like. While these plastics are necessary for food safety as well as being practical containers in a range of settings, they can easily pollute our environment and not only look unsightly but also pose risks including for marine and bird life. We've built all our own machinery and figured out how to use all the different types of waste plastic that no one else can use.”
Future Post recycles plastic waste collected through the Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme where households can drop off plastic bags and packaging at a range of collection points at many supermarkets and The Warehouse stores around the country.
Commercial plastic waste is received from a large range of organisations that are members of Future Post’s Recycling Programme. This has been set up to provide recycling avenues for both soft and hard plastics for small, medium and large businesses alike.
Jerome reports growing demand, both domestically and internationally, for Future Post posts as well as the rails and garden box kitsets the company now also makes from 100 percent recycled plastic. He says the recycled plastic makes for a highly durable material with painting or staining not required, nor are there the splinters and knots fencers often must deal with.
“The only thing we add to the waste plastic is UV carbon black, an inhibitor that provides long-lasting stability. By turning the posts black we can also recycle every colour of waste plastic – and you can do everything with a plastic fence post that you can do with a wood one, from using a post rammer, to cutting to length and hammering in staples and nails.”
Future Post’s plastic posts are being used in a range of farming settings including in the equine sector, which is increasingly favouring the product, as horses (renowned for chewing wood posts and railings) leave the posts alone.
Other uses include arena surrounds, stock yards, and borders and edgings in landscaping – and even truck beds (also known as flat decks).
As the wine industry moves towards being more sustainable, and with well over half a million wooden posts broken every year in the Marlborough region alone, many wineries are also replacing wood posts with Future Post’s posts, a major market sector that prompted the company to set up its factory in Blenheim.
Jerome says the cost of freighting posts from Waiuku across Cook Strait was significant so and together with the keen demand from wineries, Blenheim was the most logical location to service not only that region but others in the South Island.
“Plastic waste is taken off the vineyards, made into posts and the posts returned to the vineyard – you can’t get more circular than that.”
He adds: “As part of building awareness about the dual benefit of recycled plastic posts, we attend many regional events and field days so people can see and feel the posts in person, as well as recognise where their single use and waste plastic recycling efforts are going”.