Dialogue: Recycling means everyone wins

By GEORGE GRAY*

They say one man's trash is another's treasure. The trouble is that by the time the first man has thrown the treasure out with all his other rubbish, it is often so muddled up that the second man can't rescue it.

Virtually nothing that we, as a society, throw out would fail to find a new use if we had enough of it in one place. A stadium full of old lightbulbs would find a buyer.

While the Waste Strategy does not go to the level of finding that buyer, it sets targets. The strategy will inevitably raise recycling's profile and help identify the barriers.

Whether stuff no longer needed for its initial purpose is seen as scrap or as a resource is all in the mind. Turning around the mindset, as Fisher & Paykel Appliances has found, offers real rewards.

The New Zealand Waste Strategy will raise awareness of recycling and help to break down barriers to effective recycling. This recognition of recycling can only help the growth of F&P's recycling activities.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances is not much into talking about the challenges facing the manufacturing industry. From eliminating ozone-depleting chemicals in 1994 to the continuing improvement of appliance efficiency, F&P's philosophy has been quietly to initiate eco-friendly manufacturing practices and techniques.

In 1993 F&P started taking back old appliances from retailers as a pilot study into recycling of whole appliances. The pilot project gave insights into recycling that no paper evaluation would have revealed.

Today half a dozen people in the Recycling Centre deal with about 25,000 old washers, dryers, cookers, refrigerators and freezers a year. Most appliances recycled each year come from trade-ins.

The spirit of recycling goes beyond appliances themselves, with much of the packaging returned to F&P if the customer does not want it. If it is still in good condition, it is used for packing another new appliance.

The slightly damaged cartons get sold into the second-hand carton market, and the worst are pulped.

The recycling centre is budgeted to break even. This is achieved through revenue from the recycled materials and a small levy on the retailers using the service.

The high cost of dumping old appliances at landfills makes the F&P recycling service a good alternative from a cost as well as an environmental perspective.

The recycling centre also plays an important role in recycling waste from F&P's factories. As well as packaging and paper, scrap and offcuts from the production facilities are collected and sold. This is a significant saving on the cost of dumping what cannot be recycled within the factory.

Although F&P has not reached a zero waste position, it is heading in the right direction.

There are still barriers. It would be useful to have a relatively inexpensive handheld piece of equipment that would instantly identify the type of plastic in an old part.

Although many councils are active in promoting recycling, not all fully support efforts to recycle.

Many of the countries to which F&P exports are also developing strategies for dealing with scrapped appliances (for example, Australia, Japan and Europe), but the US, where the company sells 50,000 appliances a year, is not.

There are US requirements that many plastic parts must be made from a specific plastic from a specific factory. This can make it hard to use recycled plastic for these parts. Pressure to recycle in the US would probably remove this requirement.

Triple bottom line accounting is not used to confirm that recycling is commercially viable, but the principles are adopted as simply a better way of dealing with waste.

The uncosted factors would enhance the recycling side of the balance sheet. For example, material recovered and reused within the factory saves overseas funds.

An environmental stance is a real marketing advantage that reassures customers that their old appliance will be recycled, not consigned to a landfill.

While not all F&P dealers offer the service yet, there is a growing acceptance of recycling.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances would like to see the day when no appliances go to a landfill, not because they are banned but because recycling has reached the stage where the minimum effort option is to recycle rather than dump.

* George Gray is recycling manager with F&P Appliances.

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