A better use for broken posts

GREG COPPELL HERE, FOUNDER of Repost. Some of you may have seen me at Fielddays this year, some of you may have never heard of us! To break it down, Repost is essentially a recycling company of broken vineyard posts.

The viticulture industry breaks H4 #1 vineyard wooden posts every harvest at ground level. Estimates are about one million posts are broken each year in New Zealand. Previously, posts were stockpiled on vineyards, went to landfill, were wrongfully burnt or small amounts were sold for cash in the hand as is.

Today Repost works alongside vineyards nationwide to turn their waste into a second life cycle on farm fence lines. Feedback generally is our low-cost fence posts starting at $3.25 allow for larger volumes of pastoral development. At a time when every dollar counts, this is vital.

Giving a backstory (bear with me) – during Covid lockdown on a shoestring budget I filled up my eight-wheeler multiple times with these posts and began fencing 30km of my sheep and beef farm at St. Arnaud, Nelson. My wife Danielle and I bought a rough 500 hectares farm in eight large blocks and we needed to split them into smaller, productive blocks. I found the clips/nails often got in the way, so I was pulling them out with a hammer or grinding them off for flush wire installation.

After a battle with yet another nail, a second grinder buggered and the fact it was too time-consuming, I brainstormed with my father Allan over a pot of tea.

We mocked up a portable hydraulic nail puller that could, with a little luck, pull the 14 clips/nails off the post. After a lot of trial and error it worked, and soon neighbouring farms and friends wanted the posts too. Word spread and we realised we could supply a consistent product on a commercial scale.

These recycled posts meet H4 industry standards, are seasoned, which makes them dry, light, stable and we grade them to meet the level you and I need them to be: fit for purpose. Many customers have used them in all terrain, all applications and all installation forms.

We sell H4 treated 1.6 or 1.8-metre length grade 1 posts. Being ex-vineyard posts ¼ rounds are 90-115mm and ½ rounds 140-175mm. You can have them pointed, but we mainly sell them docked. We then bundle them (1/4 rounds in 60s or ½ rounds in 50s) and sell them to farmers direct, nationwide. We have also recently added batten droppers at 800mm and 1.2m lengths.

With this year’s cyclone events, we have wanted to roll our sleeves up and help. After working alongside Rural Support Trust and Federated Farmers, successfully getting unit loads of our posts to many areas, Hastings Regional Council made contact with us to see if we could be part of the clean-up.We are glad we can be part of helping the community in Hawke’s Bay by recycling waste and creating a valuable product for the rural sector.

We realise we haven’t reinvented the wheel; we have just tried to create a resource for farmers nationwide to repair cyclone damaged land, add in green belts or fence off wetland and waterways.

Many of you will shop around and have accounts with your local rural merchant. However, contact us for a quote next time to benefit from our low-cost, sustainable products. Battens starting at $1.50, and posts starting at $3.25 excluding GST.

• Visit repost.co.nz

Editor of Country-Wide, Rebecca Greaves along with her co-host Sarah Perriam-Lampp discuss the rebuilding of the East Coast and how to build back our farms with more resilience.