Titled as ‘The Greens’, the campaign has seen over 10,000 discarded plastic bottles into five ‘human’ families called The Greens. The creations are made from recycled plastic bottles collected from Kiwi Property shopping centres that are meant to encourage Kiwis to consider their actions around waste.
Kiwi Property manager shopping centres, Shelley Jenkin, said: “Upwards of 2.5 million tonnes of waste is sent to New Zealand landfills each year, yet an estimated 75 percent could be reused, recycled or composted. We’re keen to see all New Zealanders take a stance to reduce the amount of plastic sent to our landfills each year.”
“The Greens are a welcome addition to our centres as an important part of our ongoing sustainability programme, assisting us to provide a positive education experience for local communities to engage in recycling and reducing waste,” said Jenkin.
The Greens, designed as an interactive display, will appear in Kiwi Property shopping centres until 16 September. You’ll find the creations in Sylvia Park, LynnMall, Centre Place, The Plaza and Northlands.
The display features a standard family of parents and two children made completely from bottles, accompanying the instalment is an interactive box that spouts facts about sustainability when pushed.
The Greens are Kiwi Property’s latest move towards becoming more sustainable, the property company have been striving towards decreasing their carbon foot print, as consistently state in its annual reports.
In six years, the company has diverted 310 tonnes of waste annually from landfill across its portfolio of shopping centres and office buildings. That diverted waste is enough to fill 507 jumbo bins, weighing the equivalent of a 747 aeroplane, resulting in a reduction of 137 tonnes of CO2e per annum.
In a further sustainability-focused initiative, Kiwi Property has also recently installed water stations in all its shopping centres to promote tenant and customers’ wellbeing and to encourage the use of drink bottles. For a limited time, each centre is offering re-useable stainless-steel drink bottles with a selected purchase in centre.