Restoration efforts on the flood-damaged Hauraki Rail Trail are set to receive a major boost, with a $100,000 donation of recycled fence posts and railings to help repair a heavily impacted section between Paeroa and Waihī.
Mayor Toby Adams and Hauraki Rail Trail Charitable Trust chief executive Diane Drummond welcomed the delivery at Paeroa Refuse Station on Tuesday, as the last of five truckloads of materials arrived in the district.
The donation, led by The Packaging Forum, includes 3,700 fence posts made from recycled soft plastics and has been funded by member companies including Essity, Griffins, James Crisp, Mondelēz, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Sanitarium and Woolworths.
The Packaging Forum chief executive Craig Miller said the contribution was a practical way to support communities still recovering from repeated weather events.
“The Hauraki Rail Trail is more than a cycle path — it’s a lifeline for the communities it connects,” Miller said.
“After the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle and the long road to rebuild, it’s incredibly tough to see the trail damaged again. We’re proud to help with a solution that is durable and keeps plastic out of landfill.”
Miller said the initiative also highlights both the progress and challenges of soft plastic recycling in New Zealand.
“We’ve been around for 10 years, but it’s slowly growing. At the moment we’re only collecting about 7 percent of all the soft plastics put on the market, and we’d love to grow that more — the bottleneck is actually in the processing,” he said.
He said the Packaging Forum is a membership-based, not-for-profit organisation working with major retailers, brands and recycling companies to improve sustainability.
“Our purpose is to help drive New Zealand towards a circular future so that everything you buy has a better environmental outcome,” he said.
Miller said public participation is key, with drop-off points available at supermarkets and major retailers.
“People can gather up their bread bags, wrappers and frozen veggie packs and drop them off at collection points. If you put soft plastics in your kerbside bin, they’ll go to landfill,” he said.
“If they’re returned through these schemes, we can send them to processors to turn them into something useful — like these fence posts.”
The posts are manufactured by New Zealand company Future Post, which uses recycled plastic waste to create durable alternatives to timber.
“They take all sorts of plastics and turn them into valuable products like the fence posts and railings you see here. They’re more durable and long-lasting, and they keep waste out of the environment,” Miller said.
The 24km stretch between Paeroa and Waihī was damaged during severe flooding in January, adding to ongoing challenges following Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.
Spanning 167km, the Hauraki Rail Trail is one of Ngā Haerenga Great Rides of New Zealand, linking towns including Kaiaua, Thames, Paeroa, Te Aroha, Waihī and Matamata, and drawing visitors from across the country and overseas.
Drummond said the latest damage had come as a blow after years of recovery work.
“We had just paid the final account for Gabrielle repairs in December, and the trail had never looked so good,” she said.
“The January storm event was devastating on so many levels.”
She said the economic impact of closures was significant, with estimates suggesting losses of around $20,000 per day while sections of the trail remain inaccessible.
“Our cycle-trail related businesses are hurting, but they are still open, and we encourage people to support them while we get the trail back on track,” she said.
Drummond added that future-proofing the trail would be a key focus.
“It’s clear we can’t rebuild it the same way as before. Climate change is already here, and it’s very expensive to respond to.”
Each of the donated posts contains around 1,500 plastic bags and wrappers, meaning the full donation will divert more than 5.5 million bags — or 36 tonnes of waste — from landfill.
Further deliveries are expected throughout the week as repair work ramps up, with similar support for flood-affected communities in Wairoa and Gisborne.
