Today we're touring one of Waste Management's recovery centres in Auckland and meeting with Ingrid Cronin-Knight, Chief Growth and Sustainability Officer at Waste Management New Zealand. We talked to her about how to turn waste into gold.  

We learned a lot from our visit. Recycling isn't easy but when done right we can recover a good portion of our infrastructure materials, especially concrete, steel, gib, and timber. We also learned that the simple act of higher waste levies encourages more recycling and more emphasis on designing out waste. We need  more facilities like to take the load off landfills.   

Your impact at work far outweighs your impact as an individual. Not much of what you throw out of your home gets recycled. Even if you're sorting your food waste, green waste, glass, and plastics, the vast majority of what you throw out goes straight to landfill. That's what makes specifying recycling on infrastructure projects so important. Since concrete, steel and asphalt are the easiest to recycle, our work can make a massive impact.  

To learn more about Waste Management's construction waste recycling program, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcK8CemEfU  

To learn more about Waste Management's work with Aliaxis Group to recycle plastic pipes, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS4kV4kkwrM