Recycle South announced yesterday the closure of its further processing plant at Makarewa due to the ongoing financial climate and global export unrest.
The $2 million plant was opened in 2022 with the aim of sorting agricultural plastic, such as bale wrap, from Southland farms, as well as from parts of Otago.
At the time, it was pitched as the first of its kind in the country and it had a $1.2m pelletising machine which cleaned, processed and transformed bale wrap into recycled plastic pellets which would be then exported and sold overseas.
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times yesterday, general manager Chris Montgomery said while it was a difficult decision to close its plant in Makarewa, they believed it was the right one as they could focus on their core job at the Invercargill plant.
He believed the Makarewa plant did not deliver the expected results.
“The frequency of bale wrap coming in has not been enough to sustain it and I don’t think we’ve quite got the marketing right with it.
“The fact [is] that we need to have more plastics coming in to support the time when the bale wrap’s low because the bale wrap’s seasonal and it’s just been difficult and the resources to run it [the Makarewa plant] have been taken out of here … so I think we need to realign our focus back to our core.
“That’s processing the domestic recycling and, to me, the core mission is to provide people with disabilities work.”
The company had about 100 employees 80 of whom had disabilities, he said.
Mr Montgomery said the five staff employed at the Makarewa plant would be transferred to the company’s Ettrick St operation, so no redundancies were expected.
He hoped the decision to close the Makarewa plant would then bulletproof operations for the future at the Invercargill plant which processed about 85-100 tonnes of recycling waste weekly.
“Supporting workers with disabilities has always been the core purpose of Recycle South, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to that mission.
“While the closure of our Makarewa plant is a difficult decision, it will allow us to redirect our resources and efforts towards better serving our employees and the disability community we were founded to support.”
A decision about the options of the Makarewa plant was still being looked by the board, but it was likely they would try to sell the plant, Mr Montgomery said.
