Categories ArchivesRecycling
MEDIA RELEASE: Dismantling child car seats isn’t the first thing which comes to mind when finding work experience, but a group of young men and women from LIFT Youth Employment have been taking it in their stride. Between them, the Hawke’s Bay youths spent the past five weeks – one day a week – working with Hastings-based sustainability experts 3R Group, which runs the SeatSmart child car seat recycling programme. Together, Trojan Kawana, Uriah Tamati-Smith, Marika Katane, Panaomealeli Suai, Paremaina Wiperi, and Cullen Waina have put their problem-solving skills to the test dismantling expired or damaged child car seats so the components can be recycled. 3R Group operations manager Steve Nicholls says taking a seat apart is much more challenging ...
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The Green Collective, in Nelson, is one of a new breed of businesses putting sustainability at the heart of its thinking, planning and doing. We chatted to founder Emma Saunders during the COVID-19 lockdown to find out more about her work and drive for a sustainable world. Tell us about The Green Collective and the bags you make using straps from the SeatSmart programme. All our products follow the simple concept of being as sustainable as possible from start to finish. We reuse our offcuts, trimmed threads and more. For the ENCORE bags, I went a step further and looked at others’ manufacturing waste. I often drive past skips and pull over to investigate, build a relationship with the manager and see what new product could ...
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The SeatSmart Child Car Seat Recycling programme and the South Waikato Achievement Trust (SWAT) have been working together since November 2018, with SeatSmart sending many of the seats it collects to SWAT for dismantling. The result, says SeatSmart programme manager Toni Bye, is a social and environmental win-win. “It’s our ethos to maximise the environmental and social impact of the programme. So, when we realised we needed to look at new options for dismantling seats we sought out social enterprises,” she says. Previously all the seats were dismantled by offenders in Department of Corrections community work programmes. However, with the increase in volume and complexity of the seats, the decision was made to use social enterprises for much of the ...
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The road trip is a Kiwi tradition over the holidays, so now is a good time to check the safety of the seat your most precious cargo travels in. The manager of the country’s only child car seat recycling programme, SeatSmart, is urging parents and caregivers to check their children’s seats aren’t expired or damaged before heading off for the holidays. “Many people don’t know that child car seats have expiry dates,” says SeatSmart programme manager Toni Bye. “On average a seat will have an expiry date of six to 10 years.” Plunket Regional Injury Prevention Manager Simone Budel says there are a variety of reason for an expiry date on seats. “Frequent use and exposure to sunlight can damage ...
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The Wairarapa Road Safety Council is holding a free two-week collection of expired child car seats from 5 – 19 December. Road safety council Child Restrain Technician Holly Hullena says seats can be dropped off at REAP House (340 Queen Street) in Masterton, the Salvation Army (High Street) in Carterton, and the Featherston Community Centre (14 Wakefield Street) in Featherston. This is the second year the road safety council is running the seat collection project, she says. The Wairarapa region has no car seat rental options, which has led to expired car seats in particular being a huge issue, Holly says. “Although we have outlets such as Farmers, Super Cheap Auto and The Warehouse, all in Masterton, that sell certified ...
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Hamiltonians wanting to recycle their child car seats now have a second option with Go Eco Waikato Environment Centre coming on board with the SeatSmart programme. The charitable trust is now the 37th collection site nationwide for SeatSmart, a programme run by recycling experts 3R Group. It aims to tackle the issue of some 100,000 child car seats being sent to landfill each year in New Zealand, as well as raise awareness around the seats’ expiry dates. “People don’t always know that child car seats have expiry dates. The extremes of temperature in cars, stress on plastic parts, all takes a toll on seats. It’s therefore important to know when seats are due to expire and get them out of ...
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Ashburton residents can now recycle their expired, damaged or unwanted child car seats, for free, through the SeatSmart programme, with collection sites in Ashburton, Rakaia and Methven. This comes after the Ashburton District Council partnered with the national child car seat recycling programme to offer the service. Ashburton is the only district where it is free to recycle a seat, thanks to support from the council. Service Delivery Group Manager Neil McCann says the initiative supports the council’s goal of reducing waste ending up in landfill, which is a great outcome for the community. “We are proud to be partnering with the SeatSmart programme to provide this free service. A variety of common household goods are already accepted free of ...
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The Hamilton City Council has given child car seat recycling a boost with a subsidy which aims to extend access to the programme in the city. The council has partnered with the SeatSmart child car seat recycling programme and will offer a subsidy of $15 a seat for up to 300 seats a year from its waste reduction fund. This means the cost to residents will be $10 per seat. The programme also aims to add at least one new collection site in the coming months. The city’s original collection site, Baby on the Move Hamilton, was one of the first in the country, having taken part in the programme’s 2-year project, trialing collection and dismantling of seats. Hamilton City ...
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Two councils in the Top of the South have put their support behind child car seat recycling, by offering subsidies to help make it more affordable and reduce waste. The Nelson City Council and Tasman District Council are each offering a subsidy of $15 per seat for residents in their regions wanting to recycle their damaged, expired or unwanted seats through the SeatSmart programme. The subsidy, which takes effect from February 1, will mean the cost to recycle a seat is $10, with the subsidy limited to one seat per household per year. Nelson City Council Group Manager Clare Barton says the Council has a strong focus on avoiding or reducing waste. “We’re delighted to support the SeatSmart children’s car ...
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Media release: Just a few years ago there weren’t many people who would think it was possible to recycle a child car seat, much less have an option to actually do so. However, since the trial and official launch of the SeatSmart child car seat recycling programme over 8,000 seats have been diverted from landfill. The programme may seem rather niche in the greater recycling landscape but it’s a sign of things to come, when the majority of items coming into the household will have a pathway for reuse, repurposing or recycling. The increase in volume through SeatSmart over the last year is also an example of the dramatic change in how the public is starting to think and act ...
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