NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Home / Brand Insight
Brand Insight
Goodman Property

The man who finds gold in your computer

11 Nov, 2021 11:00 AM6 minutes to read
Photo / Getty Images.

Photo / Getty Images.

Sponsored by Goodman Property

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

A regular series from Goodman Property examining environmental sustainability and how New Zealand business is working to get us there.

Today: Recycling

The problem: Waste, environmental impact, global warming and climate change

The expert: Marty Hoffart, chairman of Zero Waste Network NZ says New Zealand is only recycling 28 per cent of the 2.5m-4m tonnes of waste it produces annually – though places like Raglan and Waiheke are up to 70 per cent. There is, he says, not enough of a "circular economy…if we make something and we can recover it and make it again and again, it means we don't have to keep going back and extracting more from the planet and that's really where we do all the damage". Recovering and recycling materials like cans and bottles means we save up to 97 per cent of the energy required to make new ones.

_____________________________________________________________________


Recycling electronic waste not only rids the world of toxins, it can be profitable..

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Patrick Moynihan knows how to extract gold, silver, platinum palladium and copper from your computer.

Moynihan is managing director of Computer Recycling Ltd, an electronic waste recycling and disposal centre in Auckland specialising in technology re-use and computer recycling – including almost anything with a power plug.

His business performs a double function; it makes a profit while helping to save our environment from having to accommodate the accumulated and harmful hardware of the electronic age. But he says nearly all e-waste, 98 per cent of it, is still going to landfill even though his company processes over 1000 tonnes of it a year, up 40 per cent since he bought the company four years ago, and 4m kg in all.

"You export the printed circuit boards to a big refinery [in Belgium] and you extract the gold and silver and platinum, palladium, copper… From a shipment of, say, 10,000kg of printed circuit boards, which is quite a lot of printed circuit boards, you might be able to extract 2kg of gold, 10kgs of silver, and two and a half tonnes of copper.

"If you can get it right," he says, "you can massively reduce the amount of electronics going to landfill and recover a heck of a lot of reusable materials."

Moynihan's company takes "anything with a plug – so televisions, microwave, fridges, computers, laptops, mobiles, washing machines, dryers".

"They say 98 per cent of electronic waste ends up in landfill in New Zealand which is just massive. What I wanted to do was make it really easy for businesses and the public to find us and to dispose of electronic waste in an easy way that is also really cost-effective – it's often cheaper to work with us than disposing of your e waste in landfill."

And landfill is a big problem: "It [e-waste] is the fastest-growing municipal waste stream and the most toxic," he says. "E waste contains mercury cadmium, a heap of nasties that…can leach from the landfills and go into the groundwater. It's not a very nice thing environmentally."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Companies like his are part of the answer. "Overseas, this is massive business, particularly in the US and in Australia. There's massive value out of this sort of thing. New Zealand still is a little bit behind the times as there is no regulation."

Product stewardship is a vital part of solving the e-waste problem, Moynihan says. Manufacturers of computers would have to pay a tariff on each item.

"Say it's just a dollar a kilo for a flat screen television; that money goes into a pool redistributed to the collection networks and the recyclers. It puts a much better magnifying glass on what's happening to this material and…you reduce the amount going to landfill.

"It's also good for the manufacturers because it means you're not going to get some backyard cowboy potentially collecting a heap of stuff and then exporting it to the Congo."

There's one thing ordinary New Zealanders can do to help, he says – buy quality equipment as opposed to cheap IT gear which will quickly fail and have to be thrown out and dispose of it properly.

"Buy better – it's hard, you're on a budget but buying high quality goods means you'll drastically extend the life of what you're using. You can buy something cheap and be like, oh yeah, that'll do the trick for a while but then…in 12 months' time, it's given up the ghost.

Also big in the recycling world is Eldon Reeve and Hilary West-Reeve, of Phoenix Metal Recyclers – a full service professional scrap metal recycling company with nine yards nationwide and a network throughout the South Pacific. They recycle ferrous (steel and iron) and non-ferrous metals (copper, brass, aluminium, lead, stainless steel, plus lead acid batteries).

Metal is 100 per cent recyclable; it is permanent and can be recycled over and over again – and recycling metal emits 80 per cent less CO2 than production from raw materials. Recycling one tonne of steel can save 1.5 tonnes of iron ore from being mined, saving natural habitats and forests.

Recycling steel also uses 70 per cent less energy than mining and refining virgin iron ore and recycling metal avoids sending permanent material to landfills. Eldon Reeve says their company is number one in New Zealand for recycling car batteries – and urges people to hang on to their AA and AAA batteries as a new recycling service for them is on the way.

The global push for electric vehicles (EVs) is also empowering the recycling industry, he says: "They are really topical at the moment because the construction of new EVs is copper-heavy, so demand for copper is at an all time high – and will be huge for the next five years, I think.

"Lightweight materials like aluminium are used a lot in automotive manufacturing – and then there're things we have in our houses – aluminium joinery, a huge, huge user of recycled aluminium. There are lots of products and a huge demand for them.

Phoenix exports metallics to buyers throughout Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and China: "If we're talking about in the last 12 months, we'd be about 75 or 80,000 tonnes of metallics that have come through our business and then about another 20,000 tonnes of concrete and timber and other and glass recyclables as well. We're talking some pretty big numbers," says Eldon.

Ordinary New Zealanders can help, simply by taking their metal appliances and the like to a metal recycler when, for example, the washing machine gives up the ghost.

Footprint: Business Sustainability is a new podcast series from Newstalk ZB and Goodman Property. Episode 3: Recycling is out now.

Save

    Share this article

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Discover More

The food problem NZ should not have
Brand Insight

The food problem NZ should not have

20 Dec 11:00 AM
Govt biggest problem in "clothing carbon"
Brand Insight

Govt biggest problem in "clothing carbon"

12 Dec 11:00 AM
The problem with NZ homes
Brand Insight

The problem with NZ homes

09 Dec 11:00 AM
The man who finds gold in your computer
Brand Insight

The man who finds gold in your computer

11 Nov 11:00 AM
Purging plastic with posts & packaging
Brand Insight

Purging plastic with posts & packaging

21 Oct 11:00 AM
Electric ferries to help cut emissions
Brand Insight

Electric ferries to help cut emissions

07 Oct 11:00 AM
Goodman Property

Read more from Goodman Property here
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP