Firm that turned soft plastics into building panels finds a new prong: flooring

Monday, 18 August 2025

SaveBoard and Milliken have teamed up to make Renasci, which SaveBoard feels will expand the reach and sales of the Kiwi company.

A Kiwi company that pioneered multi-use building panels using recycled packaging waste has come up with a new use for the material - in flooring products.

SaveBoard, which has a plant in Hamilton and one in New South Wales, started making interior panels from recycled plastic packaging at the time Gib boards were in short supply. It has now formed a new partnership with a company called Milliken to create flooring made from recycled soft plastics and used carpet.

The aim is to capture and use some of the 90,000 tonnes in used carpet from residential and commercial builds heading to landfill each year.

Milliken is an American industrial manufacturer operating across chemicals, floor coverings and textiles, and operates around the world.

Renasci is sold for more than usual corporate tiles, says Charteris.

The process developed by Milliken and SaveBoard involves shredding carpet tiles along with soft plastics packaging and pressing them into a new flooring product without any chemical adhesives. The flooring plank created, which will be sold under the Renasci brand name, is made entirely from materials previously destined for landfill and can be recycled over and over again in a closed-loop system that includes not just end-of-life products, but installation waste and off-cuts too, said Shaneel Deo, managing director at Milliken Floors ANZ in Sydney.

“Carpet is a multi-polymer product, and recycling it is quite a challenge,” said Deo. “It can be done, but it’s very costly to separate all the different components and recycle them individually.”

The flooring product was developed over two years after Deo came across SaveBoard, at which time he contacted founder and chief executive Paul Charteris to see how the companies could work together.

During this process, the pair realised the project would create another outlet for difficult-to-recycle soft plastic waste, a significant issue given that over one million tonnes of such waste are sent to landfill annually in Australia and New Zealand.

“One of the major challenges was finding the right ‘recipe’ for the waste mix,” Chateris said.

SaveBoard founder Paul Charteris at his warehouse plant in Te Rapa. SaveBoard creates building products out of soft plastics and milk cartons.

“For over two years, the team trialled and refined different formulas, balancing strength, flexibility and finish. A key breakthrough came in developing a scratch-and wear-resistant top layer that could be applied mechanically – without the need for glue or chemical bonding agents.”

The product is being marketed and sold from today, and stockists already had the product, which was being made out of SaveBoard’s NSW factory first of all initially.

Charteris said it was too early to talk about what kind of demand might be generated for Renasci, but that Milliken had talked about the product having possible “international appeal”, with a strong circularity story, without being sold at a premium to usual luxury vinyl tiles.

He said the partnership was an exciting one that would grow and expand the reach of SaveBoard, which was currently doing “seven figure” sales across Australia and New Zealand - albeit the Australian building sector was more healthy that the local one at present.

Woolworths Australia is the latest company to use SaveBoard in its refurbished stores across Australia - looping the supermarket’s own waste, collected in store, into the bespoke emerald green and dark grey panels, in Woolworths colours, used in any new builds.