Moo2Shampoo recycling project a New Zealand first

SKYCITY and Fonterra have partnered on a product stewardship scheme that sees Anchor milk bottles used at SKYCITY’s Sky Cafe recycled locally to become the Puriri amenities range used at SKYCITY’s two hotels.

In its infancy, this is the first product stewardship initiative of its kind between two NZ companies and will see 35,000 milk bottles recycled locally.

“This innovative partnership shows the possibility and power of businesses working together to create shared solutions that reduce environmental impact.

 “We’re working on a number of different projects to reduce our environmental footprint, and hope this is just the first of many successful partnerships like this," says Graeme Stephens, CEO, SKYCITY Entertainment Group.  

It was Kiwi company HealthPak that first developed a material made out of Anchor lightproof bottles. The product sparked the interest of SKYCITY’s Environmental Manager Courtney Simpson who reached out to Fonterra Brands New Zealand to see if a partnership on a product stewardship scheme would be possible.

Just six months later, the first batch of recycled Puriri bottles will arrive at SKYCITY’s hotels at the beginning of November.

“I am a big fan of product stewardship schemes, and the exciting part of this project was working with Fonterra and seeing that partnership work for us both. I hope this project will inspire others to develop more initiatives like this, big or small,” says Courtney.

Both SKYCITY and Fonterra are hopeful the data gathered from the initiative will allow it to be registered as a product stewardship scheme and receive endorsement from the Ministry for Environment.

Product stewardship is where whoever designs, produces, sells, or uses a product takes responsibility for minimising the product’s environmental impact throughout all stages of the product’s life cycle.

The empty light proof bottles used at Sky Café are collected by an Anchor milkman and delivered to Auckland based plastics recylers Astron Sustainability. Here, the Anchor Lightproof bottles are ground down to plastic beads that are delivered to HealthPak to manufacture the Puriri bottles which are delivered to SKYCITY. Once used, the bottles are collected and recycled back into the cycle, creating a continuous recycling loop - and life - for the Anchor bottles.