New Zealand’s largest listed property company, Kiwi Property, has recycled over 10,000 discarded plastic bottles into five ‘human’ families known as ‘The Greens’ to front a waste reduction campaign. The Greens, made from recycled plastic bottles collected from Kiwi Property shopping centres, will form the face of the campaign, encouraging Kiwis to consider their actions around waste both in-centre and at home.
Appearing at Sylvia Park, LynnMall, Centre Place, The Plaza and Northlands, The Greens take Kiwi Property’s recycling message to a new level.
Kiwi Property Manager Shopping Centres, Shelley Jenkin, said: “Upwards of 2.5 million tonnes of waste is sent to New Zealand landfills each year, yet an estimated 75% could be reused, recycled or composted[1]. We’re keen to see all New Zealanders take a stance to reduce the amount of plastic sent to our landfills each year.”
Kiwi Property is actively diverting waste from landfill across its shopping centres and commercial buildings with initiatives in place to address plastic, paper, cardboard, organics and polystyrene waste. In six years, the company has diverted 310 tonnes of waste annually from landfill across its portfolio of shopping centres and office buildings[2]. That diverted waste is enough to fill 507 jumbo bins, weighing the equivalent of a 747 aeroplane, resulting in a reduction of 137 tonnes of CO2e per annum.
“The Greens are a welcome addition to our centres as an important part of our ongoing sustainability programme, assisting us to provide a positive education experience for local communities to engage in recycling and reducing waste,” said Jenkin.
Kiwi Property National Facilities Manager, Jason Happy, said: “Kiwi Property has long been committed to optimising resource efficiency and minimising waste.
“We have a wide-ranging, long-term sustainability programme, part of which focuses on waste reduction. Since 2003, we have sought to divert waste from landfill to areas where the resources can be reused or recovered,” said Happy.
“Not only have we reduced the amount of waste we send to landfill, we have also reduced our carbon footprint by 40% and hold the highest rating of any New Zealand listed entity in the Carbon Disclosure Project.”
The Greens, designed as an interactive display, will appear in Kiwi Property shopping centres until 16 September.
In a further sustainability-focused initiative, Kiwi Property has also recently installed water stations in all its shopping centres to promote tenant and customers’ wellbeing and to encourage the use of drink bottles. For a limited time each centre is offering re-useable stainless steel drink bottles with a selected purchase in centre.
Quick facts[3]
Kiwi Property shopping centres recycle over 5,200kg of coffee grinds each month – the equivalent of about 89 trailer loads per year.
Organic waste from Kiwi Property’s foodcourts is diverted away from landfill to a composting facility. This creates enough compost each year to grow over 90,000 punnets of strawberries.
The cardboard recycled from Kiwi Property shopping centres each year is enough to build the roof and walls of over 18,000 average New Zealand houses.
Over 3,000 bins of glass, the equivalent of more than 300,000 wine bottles, are recycled from Kiwi Property shopping centres each year.
[1] Data from recycle.co.nz
2 Compared to its 2012 audited base year.
3 Some figures are from measured sources where practical. Where such figures are not available, estimates have been derived from data collected by Kiwi Property based on current operations. Accordingly, the estimated figures are approximate only and are subject to change. Kiwi Property does not warrant the accuracy of any figures.
