The $1.2 million machine, which was brought in from the US, is set to cut back burn offs and make them obsolete in the future. Photo / Supplied
The $1.2 million machine, which was brought in from the US, is set to cut back burn offs and make them obsolete in the future. Photo / Supplied
There will be less smoke in the air from Hawke's Bay orchard burn offs thanks to the enterprise of a local company.
Ross Lamborn, along with his father Jack Lamborn and local businessman Michael Walmsley, has brought in a new state of the art mulcher that will work to limitthe number of greenery burn offs.
The $1.2 million machine, which was brought in from the US, is set to cut back burn offs and make them obsolete in the future.
He had his own company prior to buying the machine where he did smaller mulching and greenery work for orchards and other businesses but only decided to take the big leap after being approached.
"After a while I had some orchards coming to me wanting to get bigger jobs done to stop doing burn offs, because they don't want to be doing it," Lamborn said.
But he said before he took the big step to invest in the machine he wanted to get some backing from people in the region to get behind the idea.
"For me it's a big investment and also for my dad and Michael to jump on board I wanted to make sure we have the support from those at regional council and Pan Pac so we can actually make it worthwhile to do it."
He said he had other ideas in the past but because people didn't get on board they weren't able to take off.
The plan was to bring it over in April when the orchard season was in full swing but he said they had so many jobs booking up they had to bring it in earlier this month and get started.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council chairman Rex Graham said it was great to see people willing to invest in better, more suitable solutions. Photo / Paul Taylor
All the greenery and mulched material produced will all be sent to Pan Pac to be disposed of in its burners, limiting the amount of emissions created but also doing it in a cost-effective way.
"We are very much looking at ways to do things in an environmentally beneficial way but in New Zealand a lot of people still have the mind-set of doing things the old fashioned way," Lamborn said.
"That's why we don't have many of these machines here and why we still have some people resorting to old methods and only change when they see a different environmentally-friendly solution for themselves."
Hawke's Bay Regional Council chairman Rex Graham said it was great to see people willing to invest in better, more suitable solutions.
"We're the only country in the world still doing burn offs like this and it's just not good enough," he said.
"It's great to see guys like Ross willing to step up and provide the solutions and having people backing him and getting behind him on the issue."
He said that it's great to see solutions come in to Hawke's Bay and more needs to be done nationally to combat the problem and introduce better ways of doing things.
