Auckland tornado: Papatoetoe plastic recycling factory trashed, has no insurance

Saturday, 3 July 2021

A business start-up that was a day away from beginning production at a new factory was hammered by the tornado that damaged hundreds of properties in south Auckland.

The plastic recycler was in the process of negotiating its insurance as the fatal storm hit Papatoetoe, meaning it doesn’t have cover for its losses.

Critical turns nearly all types of plastic waste into furniture, homeware, and building panels. Its co-founder and director, Rui Peng, said the tornado ripped the roof in half “like a can opener”.

Then rain got in and soaked the machinery.

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Peng fears the wet machinery could set the company back and drown its hopes of survival.

It was the start-up’s first at-scale factory and without insurance it will bear the entire cost of the damage.

He felt “pretty gutted, especially for a start-up too”.

“We don’t have the capital to weather three or four months not being in operation,” he said.

So, Peng created a GiveaLittle fundraising page to try to recoup $65,000. At the time of writing, it has raised just over $5500.

“It’s amazing seeing the community coming together,” he said.

He acknowledged that a business was asking for money when some people had become homeless because of the tornado.

The team’s biggest fear is water damage to its CNC machine – which creates the shapes of the items they make from plastic.

Peng estimated the machine, which they built themselves, was worth $25,000. Two other machines were also soaked.

But Peng doesn’t know exactly how much damage was done because the factory has no power for him to test the machinery.

He could see there had been some damage to the machines when they moved them out from under the hole in the roof.

Now he fears the worst.

Critical had no insurance because the building had no power and insurance companies were assessing on machinery that wasn’t operating.

The firm received a quote but were still in a negotiating process.

“It was the perfect storm, aye,” Peng said.

The freak tornado tore through Papatoetoe on June 19 and caused “tens of millions of dollars” worth of damage. It killed one person, and injured two others.

Peng arrived at the factory half an hour later. “I was pretty deflated,” he said.

Adam, the company’s other co-founder, cried.

Friends and family had come to the rescue and helped make the factory safer by removing loose and twisted metal and helping to clean up.

Over the following days Peng had to sweep puddles of water out from inside the factory.

Two weeks later, scaffolders are putting waterproof film over the hole to prevent any more rain getting in.

Critical sources plastic from corporate partnerships and recyclers who sort the plastic.

It’s also able to recycle the blue single-use face masks that have become a staple during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The products Critical makes are 100 per cent plastic, according to Peng.

“The world is awash in plastics, and it needs an ecosystem approach,” said Peng.

Kaitiakitanga – guardianship – is at the core of Critical’s mission in trying to solve New Zealand’s plastic waste problem.

Much of Kiwis’ plastic waste gets sent to developing nations or into landfills equivalent to the size of a stadium.

Peng said Critical had been in discussions with several investors before the tornado hit.

“We want to turn plastic waste into products that are beautiful, that are premium, that can be recycled forever and ever.”

Peng joked there was one silver lining: He could now see Matariki from inside the building.