Neil Ridgway, MD of Asona Ltd welcomed the Hon. James Shaw, Co-leader of the Green Party and Minister for Climate Change to Asona's Penrose factory during which the Minister announced a grant from the Waste Minimisation Fund to assist Asona to develop its ceiling panel recycle and renew programme.

“We are honoured to receive this grant and very excited by the potential our project will bring to the New Zealand ceilings market,” said Neil Ridgway. The project aims to provide a cost-effective system to refurbish soiled and damaged ceiling panels with new decorative finishes and have them reused in commercial buildings. The outcome of which will extend the useful life of the ceiling and reduce landfill waste. Currently, there are over one million square meters of ceilings being imported annually, a significant proportion of which are to replace panels demolished during building refurbishment and refit.

"Don’t dump it, re-use it,” says Neil, “Everyone is talking about how construction waste is a major problem so let’s rethink how we design, build and maintain commercial buildings. We are not going to change the world overnight but we can change what we do every day."

Asona Ltd is a New Zealand manufacturer of acoustic ceiling and wall panels serving the commercial interior construction market. Ceiling panels are used as a decorative finish and to control unwanted noise in schools, offices, retail, hospitality and civic buildings. Over time they become soiled and after an average usable life of 5-15 years, they are consigned to landfill.

With this grant, Asona can progress in developing the product, processes and education to provide a commercially viable option to recycle and reuse ceiling panels. The five-year goal is to convert 10% of the ceilings market to recycled ceiling panels which will divert approximately 350 tonnes of construction waste from landfill annually.