BETTER BUILDERS BREKKIE

The BBWG hosted a free Builders Brekkie on February 22nd at the Wānaka PlaceMakers. 

Free bacon egg buttys, a short film, and some inspiring building talks from local industry leaders is what participants got on the early Thursday morning. One lucky participant even won a free cordless nail gun. 

About 30 builders and tradies showed up for the event. Starting at 7am, the event went on for nearly an hour before workers headed out for the day. 

The focus of the event was waste reduction on building sites. The short film spoke to the current issue of waste in the Queenstown-Lakes District and explained to locals that over 240 tonnes of construction and demolition waste is sent to our district only landfill EACH WEEK! 

Breen construction shared some amazing new practices they're beginning to implement across the district and PlaceMakers showed off some amazing services they are providing such as unwrapped timber deliveries and gib collection services. 

Make sure to stay tuned for more events like this. Our next one will be in Queenstown! 

Stats from the BB Brekkie

While the event had about 30 attendees, only 23 people participated in the survey for a chance to win a PlaceMakers Prize.

The survey asked participants (the majority of whom said they were builders) questions surrounding their knowledge and work site practice around waste management. 

Of the 23 who responded 13 said they have a system to separate building waste between reuse and recycling. It left 6 who said they didn’t and another 2 who answered N/A. 

Of the same pool, 8 people said their worksites utilise site waste management plans, 6 said they sometimes do, and 6 said they don’t. 

Of a multitude of different options that one could give for barriers to eliminating or diverting construction waste from landfill, the three most common were lack of space on site, lack of a standardised collection system, and the actual cost associated with diverting waste. 

This is the first of many surveys the BBWG expects to conduct throughout the coming years to help understand the Queenstown Lakes District building industry. In better understanding the industry and the people involved we can then look at what impactful techniques to implement in order to create a more progressive and sustainable industry and thus better and healthier communities.