The Hunter Manufacturing Awards have transformed Resourceful Living, a business in the region. Founded by Geoff and Jess Hodge, Resourceful Living is thankful for the connections created through these awards. Networking opportunities facilitated by the awards introduced them to like-minded manufacturers who have since become mentors.
The Kurri Kurri based business is all about manufacturing change and reducing plastic pollution. It transforms plastic waste into sustainable furniture and products for the building industry by taking tonnes of discarded plastic, shreds it, heat-presses it, and cuts it into items ranging from furniture to clocks and even skirting boards. The process, from pollution to practical, can take as little as two days.
Resourceful Living won the 2022 Hunter Manufacturing Award (HMA) for outstanding start-up. At that stage, it had already recycled 10 tonnes of waste plastic and presented as a shining example of the circular economy in The Hunter.
Last year, HMA presented Resourceful Living with the collaboration partnership gong for its alliance with New England Health.
When HMA presented the prize, it noted the collaboration is well conceived in that it acts as a pain reliever for one party and provides a gain for the other.
“Within a short space of time, Resourceful Living has already converted the efforts to significant sales, a rate that appears almost at parity with the rate that waste can be recovered as a resource for those sales,” HMA’s Admin and Events Coordinator, Adrienne Donnelly said.
“The model is repeatable, scalable, and can be effected relatively quickly.”
Resourceful Living – “plastic fantastic” – is undergoing stage one of its expansion, adding two new processing machines and conveyor belts. The new equipment will increase capacity from 50 tonnes of plastic waste a year to close to 1000 tonnes. From that, it will look to manufacture about two tonnes a day.
The expansion is demand driven. Its two smaller machines had hit capacity, creating a month to six-week turnaround. The other aspect of the expansion is the addition of a big crusher with the ability to manage 40-litre drums of waste and full plastic chairs. It will negate having to cut up the bigger items first and enable the processing of 250 tonnes a month.
“We’re changing the business into a real circular operation,” Jess said. “The waste comes to us in it’s original form, such as chairs or bottles, and we will churn it into useful materials using our press, 3D printer, and injection moulding machine.”
Resourceful Living has four fulltime employees but aims to increase that to 25 in the next two years, hiring every month to have enough people manning all the machines.
“I’m trying to keep it all local and we can all be proud of our backyard,” she said.
Resourceful Living is also collaborating with concreting firms on form work.
“I didn’t realise that form ply isn’t great in wet weather,” Jess said.
“Much of our repurposed plastic manufactured sheets are now going into concreting and the building industry where they can have multiple uses. If it rains, our sheets don’t swell, which is an annoying property of ply. And if the builders don’t have a use for our sheets, they can send them back to our factory.”
Resourceful Living is forever thankful to the HMA. The awards created a networking opportunity that enabled Geoff and Jess to find other manufacturers in the region, some of whom have been mentors.
“We now have associations with a great group of people. We’re all manufacturing, but it can be hard to find people. Deeps Engineering in Salamander Bay is amazing, and we met them at the 2022 HMA. Our relationship developed organically from there.”
There’s no shortage of waste plastic and Resourceful Living is narrowing the radius of its supply area.
IMAGE | Jess Hodges – Resourceful Living
