As part of a project to eliminate and repurpose plastics from the local environment, former Pakuranga College student Daniel Tolmie and friends Mikael Coupe, Sam Bhatia, Mitch Coubrough and Josh Grainger got more than they bargained for stumbling across 14 supermarket trolleys in the stream between Pakuranga College and Lloyd Elsmore.
The group was shooting a video of the cleanup and spotted the trolleys that can have a replacement cost of up to $400 each.
Daniel said “We couldn’t just leave them though so we went to Bunnings and grabbed some supplies and the next morning spent 4 hours in the rain pulling 14 trolleys out one by one. There was still 3-4 in the stream that with all our strength could not pull out.”
The group then called Auckland Council to “see if they could dispose of the trolleys properly, and they marked it as a serious case.”
Daniel alleged Council passed the responsibility for the collection to Countdown. A move the group described as “disappointing to hear about after all the hard work that we had already done.”
“We then called up Countdown who didn’t know about it and said they will look into collecting the trollies within the week, we are yet to see if that’s been done” added Daniel.
Countdown has been approached for comment.
“Plastic in our environment is a huge problem and we believe we can be part of it says Daniel. “The model is simple – plastic is collected, cleaned, sorted and shredded accordingly, then using injection moulding machines, the plastic is moulded into products that can serve a long term purpose and be recycled again in years to come.”
Click here to learn more about their recycling project: https://tsbgoodstuff.co.nz/peoples-choice/
