saveBOARD is a sustainable construction board, made from packaging waste such as used beverage cartons, soft plastics and coffee cups. The product’s green credentials meet all obligations under 14G of the Building Act, reducing waste from the environment and up to 90 per cent reduction in carbon. Offcuts and end-of-life boards can be remanufactured into new board products, providing a zero waste to landfill solution.

saveBOARD Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Paul Charteris said the factory started producing on 21 November 2021 and since 10 January it has been operating 24 hours a day, three days per week producing 400 boards a day and diverting up to 4,000 tonnes of waste from landfill annually. The company plans to ramp the factory up to six days per week as demand increases. The factory has created new jobs with more expected as the project grows.

Mr Charteris said New Zealand builders can now replace plywood, particle board and plasterboard, with saveBOARD’s low carbon, environmentally sustainable construction boards.

saveBOARD has funding and support from industry leaders Freightways, Tetra Pak and Closed Loop Solutions which will provide recycled material as well as transport and logistics solutions.

Andrew Pooch, Managing Director of Tetra Pak Oceania said, “This local recycling solution is more than just an investment to us. It is the right thing to do.

“The saveBOARD facility delivers on the New Zealand Government’s objective to transform recycling by delivering a local circular economy solution. The facility has the capacity to process all the beverage cartons in New Zealand and increase if demand grows. It will require a steady supply of used beverage cartons through kerbside recycling to deliver a much-needed supply of sustainable building materials in the market.”

Freightways Chief Executive Officer, Mark Troughear, is thrilled to see the plant up and running and says its investment in SaveBOARD was an important step in the NZX listed company’s continuing mission to find circular waste solutions.

“One of Freightways’ core principles is to take ownership and solve problems through action, investing in SaveBOARD was an opportunity to do just that by supporting a smart and market-ready idea.

Mr Charteris said there is a growing demand for the product because of the building materials shortage. “For example, we have taken used Tetra Pak packaging from Fonterra and recycled Suntory coffee cups along with Contact Energy’s redundant marketing material to produce a saveBOARD exposed interior lining on a feature wall at Contact’s Auckland offices.

“If people buy and use our products, we can scale up and have a bigger impact. The more people buy our product, the more we can produce. Every board sold means 10kg less of carbon emissions, and less packaging that ends up in landfill.”

The saveBOARD production process uses heat and compression to bond materials, eliminating the need for glues or other chemical additives. saveBOARD is made with zero water, zero glues, zero chemicals and has zero VOC emissions or formaldehydes. The product provides up to a 90% reduction in carbon emissions compared with other construction boards.

The technology to turn waste into high performance building material was developed in the United States where it has been widely used for more than a decade. The product was chosen by Tesla as the membrane roof substrate for its 200,000m2 gigafactory in Nevada. The Tesla roof equates to upcycling 2,000 tonnes of composite plastics and saves 336,000 kgs of embodied CO2 compared to using plywood.

Mr Charteris said saveBOARD had received a A$1.74 million grant from the Australian and New South Wales Governments towards setting up a A$5 million facility in New South Wales that is scheduled to be in production this year.

More information about saveBOARD is available at www.saveboard.nz