Inspired thinking turns plastic into planters

BY JULIA WADE

22 Aug, 2022

Inspired by neighbourhood walks picking up rubbish and a desire to manage their own business, an innovative young couple have come up with a remarkable hand-crafted environmentally-friendly product which addresses the never-ending problem of plastic.

Recent locals, Will Stevens and fiance Jordan Flyger have entrepreneured a brand-new business, Two Six One, incorporating creative concrete planters with the environmental disposal of nuisance plastic items. The unusual numerical name reflects the ratio of the concrete, cement and water mix Will says, ‘though not sure how we came up with it but it sort of stuck’.

The venture began when the couple swapped the mountain terrain of Queenstown for the coastal life of Mangawhai in December last year, and while awaiting the arrival of baby Jude in May, were scoping ideas for a home business. As they were looking for large concrete pots and planters for their own garden, they twigged to the concept.

“We wanted to do something sustainable and had a few ideas of different businesses,” the new dad says. “When we couldn’t find the planters we wanted we thought, why don’t we pursue this, and started researching about plastics and cement. From there we bought a shredder, had molds imported and started playing around making pots and planters.”

At the start Will, a drainlayer by trade, and Jordan, an early childhood teacher, used plastic rubbish they picked up on daily walks around the Village neighbourhood and estuary, saving many pieces from heading to the ocean. Will also would make trips to Hakaru Refuse Centre to collect the harder-to-recycle plastics – numbers three, four and five – such as yoghurt, ice cream and Simply Squeezed containers. After giving the items a water blast, they were then shredded into fine 4–8mm flakes before being mixed with cement to form a specialised composite known as GFRC [glass fibre reinforced concrete].

“The fibres serve a purpose similar to reinforcing steel in reinforced concrete and they also add flexural and impact strength. As a result, GFRC is used to produce strong, durable concrete products suitable for both indoor and outdoor use,” he says. “We shred the plastic really fine so in the future, if the concrete ever broke down, it will still be recyclable.”

After advertising on local social media, the couple received a flood of positive feedback from the community for the environmental initiative as well as the attention of local companies who were looking for ways to get rid of their industrial plastics, ‘think everyone wants to do something with their waste but they don’t know what to do’.

Will says they now have a main source, recycling Mangawhai ITM’s plastic strapping, an ongoing single-use product which holds pallets of timber and other supplies, and eventually ends up in landfill, until now.

“New Zealand doesn’t recycle strapping, it just goes into the skip, which is the same for any construction yard, so it’s a good solution for us and ITM, and it goes easy through the shredder,” he says. “For now, we’re just using the strapping from Mangawhai ITM but hopefully as our product sells, the more plastic we can gather and recycle. We can only take in as much as we put out though and already have piles of the stuff building up.”

Working on the weight of the plastic, with a capless 250ml bottle approximately 16 grams, the smaller pots are comprised of around ten 250ml plastic bottles, medium size about 20, and large

pots and troughs taking around 40 bottles. The more product made and sold, the more single-use or hard-to-recycle plastic is diverted from being dumped at a landfill.

Although the strength of concrete decreases slightly with plastic in the mix, the composite is being used by one company for the production of lightweight tilt up panels such as walls, facades, noise barriers and floor toppings, and in Australia for creating pathways and roads in certain areas Will says. He is unsure if anyone else in the country is using the technique to create garden products however and an online search for a similar ‘Two Six One’ product showed no results.

Currently sold only via their website, pots and planters of all sizes and shapes are the current designs, however the creative scope is endless and the couple already have plans to extend their product line with side tables, bird baths, water features and bowls.

“The biggest thing at the moment is marketing. We’re aware our product could be more of a seasonal thing as people are more inclined to get into their gardens in spring and summer so we’re looking to start at a Mangawhai market soon and hopefully business will ramp up,” Will says. “So far it’s been really good though, we can both be at home with baby Jude as well as working on something that can make an important sustainable difference.”

n Interested in knowing more? Visit twosixone.co.nz, or see them on Facebook and Instagram.

Two Six One co-founder Will Stevens displays a range of environmentally-friendly, plastic-waste-reducing garden pots, planters and other pieces. With each item sold, many pieces of plastic are diverted from landfill. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

“We wanted to do something sustainable and had a few ideas… we thought, why don’t we pursue this…”