The 3R Group does what it says on the tin - ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’
Thursday, 15 January 2026
Profit & Planet is a series profiling finalists on the Sustainable Business Awards’ Next List, an annual list of the best innovators, entrepreneurs, projects and organisations in the green space.
3R works across the supply chain to bring together businesses to find ways of turning their waste materials into innovative new products.
The company has a team of about 60 throughout New Zealand with hubs in Christchurch, Auckland and in Hawke's Bay, which is also its head office.
One of its biggest successes has been Resene’s waste paint project that recently had its first tin of recycled paint returned to go through the process again.
The Post spoke to 3R chief executive Adele Rose.
What is the gap in the market your product or service fills?
I asked my grandson, and he said that we recycle the hard stuff.
That's quite a good description. We do focus on hazardous waste or hazardous products to the environment or humans.
Our unique position is that we work with the whole supply chain. We build relations between businesses and work through a process to get to an agreement on how a product at the end of its life can be collected and new innovative products can be spun from it.
In our early days we worked with the Resene paint waste programme that has grown to an industry-wide program. The programme collects the waste paint and packaging from stores and councils. The plastic goes back to the plastic recyclers to be made back into plastic packaging.
The paint is processed into a new paint product, which has been released by Resene through Mitre10, called Repaint. A few weeks ago, we had a repaint package dropped off to us, so it's now going off on to its second life and that's really what we want. It's taken many years to get there and I guess that is the nature of the work we do. It's working with industry to get these outcomes.
Another programme is the agrichemical and packaging recycling program to manage the chemicals and certified pathways for disposal. Currently we are working with the tyre industry, and have just launched Tyre Wise, New Zealand's first regulated scheme for end of life tyres. Development of the programme started in 2012 and regulations were put in place last year to give effect to the scheme.
We build really solid relationships for the sector and with the sector, because often these people have never worked together before, even though they're part of the same supply chain. And then they are putting innovation and R&D at the end of it, which creates a value added product.
Every day you come to work, you are doing something good.
What are your ambitions for the business?
Through our 20-odd years of experience we've come up with the Sustainability Futures Accelerator. It's a methodology that we use to help businesses work through what they actually need and what support they might need for the broader stakeholders.
Our goal for the business is to reach as many startup businesses, or businesses that are on the cusp of growing, that we possibly can, so that they have a really good plan for their sustainability journey.
Does NZ do enough to ensure green businesses develop and thrive?
Being a green business ourselves, we know that we need to have policy settings right for exponential growth. That includes a robust Resource Management Act and Waste Minimisation Act. Depending on who is in government those policy settings can become quite weak, or they can become very strong.
On the other side we have the Sustainable Business Council, which is a partner to the Waste Business Council for Sustainable Development worldwide, and there is a sustainable business network.
New Zealand Inc. is doing enough to ensure that green businesses develop and thrive, but I think governments through policy settings can do a lot more.
Younger generations see an enormous future working in this space. So while as business owners, things can get tough commercially, the future is actually really bright for this type of business.