How Kiwi Skips is shaking up New Zealand’s recycling industry

“I kept seeing a lot of useful material getting thrown out to the landfill, construction waste mainly, things like metal, wood, plasterboard and concrete which are all reusable with a little work,” says Dan Butterfield, owner of Kiwi Skips, a New Zealand-based on-demand skip hire company committed to sustainable waste management. “Watching it all go to waste felt wrong – but it was pretty easy to fix.”

Kiwi Skips was a winner of the ‘Innovating for Sustainability’ category in the 2023 Xero Beautiful Business Fund for their work promoting zero waste management. We sat down with Dan for a chat about his journey from engineer to entrepreneur, and what he has in store for the future.

Starting from scrap

Construction waste makes up about 50% of New Zealand’s total waste, with 20% going straight to landfill. “My parents ran a scrap metal facility. It makes me a fifth-generation recycler,” said Dan. “But I’m the first to take this beyond just recycling scrap metal. My wife and I started Kiwi Skips because we wanted to do things differently, we wanted to get people thinking about what can actually be done to dispose of waste responsibly and create real change in the industry.”

At 21, Dan started an engineering company working on upcycling metals and scrap for resell, which eventually grew into engineering skip bins for his parent’s scrapyard. Those early successes also brought with them some hard lessons in the industry. “A competitor put in a big order of skip bins and then backed out. I was left with a bunch of brand new skip bins on my hands and nowhere to put them,” said Dan. “Then I thought, why not hire them out?”

Out of that encounter, Kiwi Skips was born. One of the early tools that helped Dan grow his business was Xero. “It makes managing our finances really simple,” Dan said. “The software’s flexibility is very useful for a capital-intensive business like Kiwi Skips. We offer a lot of services – renting out wheelies and skips, and now liquid waste disposal – so being able to track all the different services on one platform helps us ensure each service is profitable, which has allowed us to grow to where we are today.”

Building a foundation with the Xero Beautiful Business Fund

Six years and a lot of work later, Kiwi Skips has won multiple awards for their efforts promoting sustainable waste management in Southland, handling a range of waste types from both construction sites and households. The next step in their plan was to get their own recycling and sorting facility specialising in construction and demolition waste. This plant would process waste from Southland and sort them before packing the recyclables to be shipped out for reuse. “For too long, most of this waste has ended up in landfill, which only serves the interests of the big players,” Dan said. “We want to get people to think differently about what can be done with it, and having our own facility is a big step towards that change.”

However, a brand new plant could cost upwards of $8 million, prompting Dan to apply his convictions about waste to the task. “Building a plant the traditional way would be both expensive and labour intensive, so we wanted to find a better alternative,” explained Dan. “We thought, ‘How cool would it be to build the recycling plant from recycled materials!’”

Kiwi Skips had secured most of the equipment needed for the plant including pre-used stacking conveyors from scrap yards, industrial magnets, and even the conveyor from the old Queenstown luge, which would function as the facility’s main sorting conveyor. But they needed additional resources to turn those ambitions into reality – making them a perfect fit for the Xero Beautiful Business Fund. 

“Our accounting team, who told us about the fund, gave us the kick up the pants we needed to finally put our application through,” Dan joked. “We spent a lot of time and effort on the video application trying to tell our story. We’re serious about what we’re doing and we don’t like to do things  in a half-baked way. But we knew that if we won, the fund would help a lot of people in the community.”

Turning waste into gold

After winning a share of the fund, the team decided to put the cash into hiring architects to design the facility. “Building with used materials meant we were constantly running into design challenges at the beginning. A lot of the time, it felt like nothing lined up,” said Dan. “The Xero Beautiful Business Fund gave us the resources to get professionals onboard and paint a much more cohesive picture of the whole thing.”

The new design charts a recycling facility that is cheaper to build and operate and transforms traditional recycling into a data-driven business. “Every piece of trash we collect will be weighed, categorised and sorted, with the data summarised into a digital report,” Dan explained. “This facility will be fully automated and capable of identifying recyclable and non-recyclable waste in real time.”  

Safety measures are also being put in place. As waste fires remain a big concern for recycling facilities, Dan plans to make worker safety paramount in the new plant. “The plan includes safety precautions like a comprehensive fire and evacuation plans to prevent any accidents,” said Dan. “We want to create the best conditions possible for the people in the building.”

Kiwi Skips is still raising the funds to finish the build, but instead of the quoted $8 million, Dan thinks it’ll be possible to complete for around $1.5 million, largely due to their architects’ advice on how to best combine new and refurbished materials. 

Winning a share of the fund has also helped spread the word about Kiwi Skips and their goal to build an eco-friendly recycling plant. “People are now sitting up and going, ‘Hey, these guys are serious!’,” said Dan. “We’ve got the attention of large companies now, which is something I could only have dreamed about before. It’s been a great year for us, and I’m optimistic about our future.”

Kiwi Skips may have been born out of a cancelled order of brand new skip bins through Dan’s engineering company, but Dan credits the support from his team and industry as his biggest win. 

“The pivotal moment for me was getting help from people with experience, rather than trying to do everything myself,” Dan explained. “Sometimes the best thing you can do is to reach out to others who are experts in their fields. Don’t be afraid to ask someone who’s done it before to mentor you. Most of the time, someone’s been where you’re going, and they’re more than happy to share some advice.”

We’re thrilled to share that the Xero Beautiful Business Fund is back for 2024 and entries are officially open.

The 2023 winners are an incredible group of small businesses and nonprofits who are passionate about solving problems and making an impact in their local communities. We’re spotlighting some of the past winners to hear more about how the fund has impacted their business and helped them achieve their goals. Read stories from other Xero Beautiful Business Fund winners by visiting the blog.

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Source: Xero Blog