Pahiatua shrubs up well

Ash Cairns knows all about planting for the future. The businessman was 10 when he helped plant trees at Pahiatua School.
Now 60, Ash is digging deep again, sponsoring the district's successful Paper4trees programme,
"Future-proofing is what it's all about, as is our recycling business," he said. "Put simply, we're in the business of providing somewhere for people to put their recyclables, then we pass it on for someone to do something with it. We're part of the recycling chain and all along that chain are different links."
One of those links is the Paper4trees programmes running in Tararua schools and on Monday Mr Cairns was in Dannevirke to help Huia Range School pupils plant new native trees.
Paper4trees manager Cayley Manson explained how the programme worked. "We reward schools and preschools with native trees, shrubs, grasses and flaxes if they recycle their paper and cardboard. We don't actually collect any recycling ourselves, we simply give schools an incentive to recycle, by providing them with 30-litre green plastic recycling bins for every room in their school to help with the separation and collection process."
The Paper4trees programme runs in more than 3000 schools and preschools. Schools receive one native tree, shrub, grass or flax for every 2000 litres of paper and cardboard they recycle, which is equivalent to either eight 240-litre wheelie-bins, three woolsacks or one 2cu m recycling skip.
"In the Tararua our sponsors are Cairns Bins and the Tararua District Council and the trees for Tararua schools have been grown by Coppermine Nursery in Woodville," she said. "We owe a big debt of thanks to Coppermine who take extra care to ensure the trees arrive at the schools in excellent condition and all Tararua schools should be congratulated for their tremendous efforts over the years to reduce their waste to landfill."
With tonnes of paper and cardboard diverted from Tararua council landfills because of the programme, and the new Cairns Bins central transfer station now open in Palmerston North, Mr Cairns said there had been a huge increase in the range of recoverable materials.
"Despite the popular perception, there isn't a lot of money to be made in the recycling business," Mr Cairns said. "But with all the rubbish there is in the world, you have to make the decision, do you pick [it] up and just cart it to a hole in the ground?
"As the cost of disposing of rubbish goes up, so does the cost of collecting it. With landfill costs at $100 a tonne, separating waste into another product stream can cost just $20 a tonne, so in effect you've saved $80 a tonne."
He said his company was in the business of picking up rubbish, not dumping it. "We're all about putting as little as possible in a hole," he said. "I've just sunk more than $3 million into a new sorting plant in Palmerston North and while it's a bit before its time now, in 10 years' time, it'll be for its time. We decided to build the plant when the Pahiatua landfill closed."
Mr Cairns, who moved to Pongaroa from the United Kingdom when he was 5, has been in the rubbish business 30 years.
"For the past 28 years we've been picking up as much as possible and tipping out as much as we can, but now we're picking up and recycling and it works well."
The new Palmerston North recovery plant has been open since November and while there is still some fine-tuning to be done, Ash is pleased with progress so far.
"I just want to make it easy for people to recycle and reduce waste."
He's thrilled his mobile recovery centres in the Tararua are working well. He had a chance to check out some of them when he took his nephew, Tim, on a sentimental journey out through Route 52 to Pongaroa on Monday.