Sustainable business filling a need

EcoPlas Australia working with rural communities

Sometimes the planets align and as Mount Gambier based EcoPlas Australia was looking to get a foothold in the eco-friendly space, a shortage of hardwood fence droppers faced by farmers and rural communities reared its head and owner Willie Van Niekerk’s recycled plastic alternative was soon in high demand.

Willie’s innovative approach not only provides an eco-friendly alternative but also champions local sustainability and he turns recycled plastic waste into highquality, durable fence droppers, adding plastic battens to the catalogue as well.

“We are proud to be a regional business dedicated to solving the challenges faced by our local farming communities,” said Willie van Niekerk. “Our commitment to sustainability and innovation has allowed us to create a product that not only addresses the shortage of hardwood fence droppers but also supports local businesses and reduces environmental impact.”

Willie relocated to the Limestone Coast almost eight years ago and was working in the forestry sector but three years ago, he decided to make a genuine difference, combining his engineering background and his passion for the natural world to set up Ecoplas Australia.

To say setting up a business giving plastic a new lease on life by creating, initially, picnic tables and benches, was a steep learning curve is an understatement.

It saw Willie experimenting with what worked and what didn’t and he complemented his own work by visiting a recycling centre in Adelaide that showed him the ropes and had conversations with a similar company in Sydney.

“They warned me it would be extremely difficult and it was really challenging to get started but it has also been exciting,” Willie said.

Of course, one of the pitfalls of creating a product that is strong and durable and designed to last 40-plus years, is the inability to garner repeat business, the cornerstone of sustainability for any business but necessity is the mother of invention and so it has turned out to be for Willie.

“I knew if we really wanted to make an impact on local waste I had to make something that would be used locally and regularly and that’s when I moved to the fence dropper,” Willie said.

That project started in earnest last month and with the process now refined, Willie is working hard to build up a stockpile so when he ramps up the marketing of his new product, he has the stock to meet demand.

The fence droppers took off as he hoped and soon became the major focus of the business, and Ecoplas Australia is currently churning out between 1200 and 1600 a day – that is an increase from around 800 a day in the early days of producing the farm product.

“To put that in context, each dropper uses on average seven milk bottles and 18 bottle lids, and the battens even more, at nine milk bottles and about 23 lids so that is a lot of plastic getting recycled locally and being used again,” Willie said.

“I have just loved the process of combining by two passions – engineering and nature,” he said. Touring Ecoplas Australia’s facility in Law Street, Mount Gambier, does nothing if not reveal the simplicity of Willie’s vision as he converts milk bottle and wheelie bin plastics into fence droppers and battens.

It is a small but efficient production line with Willie walking plenty of kilometres every day as he keeps an eye on his conversion process and even in the short space of three years, Willie has evolved his modus operandi to ensure the most efficient process possible.

“When we started we had bins set up around town for people to drop off their plastics,” Willie said.

“But often that plastic was dirty or almost unusable so what happens now is the recycling is taken from Green Triangle Recyclers to Adelaide and then we purchase those bags from Adelaide.”

The content of those bags are then crushed even further on arrival at Ecoplas Australia, combined, supplemented with a UV stabiliser and then there is the heating, the moulding, the cooling and then stacking of the finished droppers and battens.

EcoPlas Australia’s locally recycled plastic fence droppers and battens are available in various sizes and can be purchased through authorized dealers.

Detailed product information, pricing, and other resources can be found at www.ecoplasaustralia.com.au