Food cartons and packaging upcycled into building products

It started as a light bulb idea to reduce waste from milk cartons handed out in schools. Now it’s a multimillion-dollar venture transforming the way we reuse waste products.

Sustainable waste reduction company SaveBoard, with a $ 2.7 million investment from Freightways, is working to expand and do more to help the environment.

Paul Charteris is the co-founder and chief executive of the company and over the past four years has been on a mission to convert 4000 tons of waste per year from landfill.

SaveBoard is doing this by converting products such as food cartons and courier packaging, which were previously not recyclable if contaminated, into sustainable building materials.

“It was to make a difference … When I saw this in the [United] States I was like, ‘Wow, how do we bring this here?’ … Because you can actually take everyday packaging waste and upcycle it into building materials that can be recycled again rather than having all these skip bins full of building waste, Charteris said.

“It actually creates a circular solution for the packaging as well as the building materials.

“In an ideal world, there would be no packaging waste,” Charteris said. “I can’t change that, but I can provide a solution for the waste we already create.”

By partnering with Freightways and shareholders such as Closed Loop and Tetra Pak, SaveBoard has been able to establish a fully operational plant in Hamilton and a second one in Australia that is due to open in October.

What began as a $ 1.1m loan in 2021 from Freightways turned into a 22% shareholding, and since then the freight company has catalyzed efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

The new Te Rapa plant has also installed a cleaning facility to its production line, allowing it to make use of contaminated materials that would otherwise go straight to landfill.

The consumer waste then gets transformed into building materials similar to plywood, oriented strand board and particleboard – which are in short supply.

Freightways chief executive Mark Troughear said for years prior the company had been carrying out a similar recycling strategy with paper and packaging.

Working alongside SaveBoard meant Freightways could continue to divert waste product and move towards its fossil fuel emissions targets.

“For years now we’ve been diverting around 50,000 tons of material away from landfill and into recycling streams, and so that got us thinking about the other things that we could pick up,” Troughear said.

“When we looked at SaveBoard, we said, ‘It’s not too dissimilar. The idea again is that you pick up the product … You shred it and then put it into a process which recycles, ‘and we really liked that idea.

“Our goal is to reduce our plastics usage by 70% by the end of this year and then the other goal is to reduce our carbon emissions by 50% by 2035.”

At SaveBoard, Charteris wants to recycle 100,000 tons of waste by 2030 and will require more plants to increase capacity, which he said is definitely achievable.

He had five other plants in order and was looking forward to seeing other companies create similar initiatives for the environment globally.

“Without Freightways and our other shareholders, it wouldn’t be a reality,” Charteris said.

“Every board sold means 10kg less carbon emissions, and less packaging that ends up in landfill … The more people use upcycled material, the better the planet is. This is the circular economy in action.

“We’ve got a great company and some great backing to bring about some change.”