New Zealand has been lagging in recycling waste from fire extinguishers, but a new trial is now being supported by a grant from a council fund targeted at waste minimisation
Expired and damaged fire extinguishers have been recovered, reverse engineered, and individual components recycled and reused, in a trial by local organics recyclers EcoStock. It aims to avoid having to build new landfills where they would be disposed.
EcoStock is working on putting out figurative waste fires by ensuring all suitable household and commercial expired fire extinguishers are returned to Auckland to be recycled, with the phosphorus and nitrogen-rich powder reused as a key ingredient in cement strengthening and fertiliser manufacturing.
EcoStock Managing Director Andrew Fisher said the scheme could produce around 900 tonnes of suitable material of construction or fertiliser per year, and divert between 3000 and 4000 kg of extinguisher waste ending up in landfills every day, the equivalent of the mass of two small cars being a day.
The trial began in January, with around a third of costs covered by Auckland Council’s Waste Minimisation Innovation Fund, which gave the company a grant of $35,000 to contribute toward lab fees, facility leases and freight costs.
The fund exists to support projects that minimise landfill waste in the city and promote product stewardship. It’s all in service of the Council's eventual goal of sending zero waste to landfill by 2040.
“For big business it’s nothing – but New Zealand is small business and we are not doing enough to assist small businesses to take the initiative,” he said. “If you’re a big business, what’s $50,000, what’s $10,000 ... but to a small mum and dad business or a trucking business, it’s worth applying for.” – Andrew Fisher, EcoStock
In its nine years of operation, the fund has allocated $5 million-plus to more than 450 projects, each claiming between $1000 and $50,000 grants.
Fisher said support from the fund was an important first step towards pursuing sustainability projects especially for small and medium-size Auckland businesses.
“If you look at a ladder of sustainability, we’re all so focused looking at the top of the ladder, about what the world will look like if we are sustainable, but no-one ever paints a picture of what the first steps on that ladder look like,” he said. “This is part of it. It’s really so important that these [grants] stay available.”
Costs like hiring facilities and consultants, audits and staff time add up quick, so a grant can be the difference between the success of a project like this or it never getting off the drawing board.
“For big business it’s nothing – but New Zealand is small business and we are not doing enough to assist small businesses to take the initiative,” he said. “If you’re a big business, what’s $50,000, what’s $10,000 ... but to a small mum and dad business or a trucking business, it’s worth applying for.”
There are currently 3.7 million tonnes of inorganic waste sitting in New Zealand landfills, with 21.5 percent of it potentially hazardous.
It’s a big number, but if 900,000 kilograms of fire extinguisher waste can be put to other use, it’s a dent.
Fisher stressed it’s just a small step – but it could lead people into realising there is something they can do with a fire extinguisher once its usefulness is expired.
The high-stakes hazardous moments that extinguishers lie in wait for mean there’s a high threshold of perfection put on the humble fire extinguisher. This means most models need to be replaced after five years, even if they haven’t been used, and they are serviced annually during the five-year operational window.
They can be recycled if they are completely empty, and even pressure tested and refilled, but if it’s an untouched extinguisher beyond its use by date, it needs to be emptied first, wasting the monoammonium phosphate within.
Fisher said he expects to divert 80 to 90 percent of the extinguishers sent to landfill in New Zealand.
It’s an area of sustainability and circularity New Zealand is lagging behind on, with extinguisher-to-fertiliser and cement initiatives already off the ground in comparable developed countries like Germany, England and Australia.
Fisher said people overseas expressed disbelief at the lack and difficulty in accessing Central Government funding for projects like this, owing in part to New Zealand’s ‘clean, green’ image overseas. He said the Council had been quick to recognise the need to engage with such projects to verify and understand further this possible sustainability pathway through the fund.
The fire extinguisher trial is one of 32 projects given grants this August ranging from a few thousand to help apartment buildings establish communal composting to $21,000 towards a textile baler for a company recycling textile waste.
The biggest grant this month was $44,259 to non-profit organisation Para Kore Ki Tamaki to offer community-led zero waste workshops with a focus on tikanga and the relationship with Papatūānuku.
Auckland Council’s General Manager Waste solutions, Parul Sood was enthusiastic about the ideas given life through the fund.
“Every year, we are impressed and inspired by the creativity and commitment displayed by our applicants. Each of these projects makes a real difference to the communities they serve and brings us closer to our goal of sending zero waste to landfill by 2040,” she said.
