Vineyard posts recycled for farms

• Published date: 10 April 2024
• Publication title: Hastings Leader, The

Repost, a company based in Marlborough, has been repurposing vineyard fence posts for the past four years

What started as a need to find a cost-effective way to source posts for 30km of stock fencing on Greg and Dansy Coppell’s 500ha sheep and beef breeding farm in Nelson Lakes has now turned into a thriving business.

Their first thought was to find a quantity of discarded vineyard posts which Greg’s father Allan had been using for decades on his farm.

They found a stockpile of posts at a Marlborough vineyard and, after sorting over the pile, they returned, repurposing the broken posts into usable 1.8m and 1.6m half- and quarter-round posts, and completely transformed their farm into usable paddocks, maximising pasture and accommodating their stock.

With thousands of tonnes of useful durable wood being put into landfills every year from the viticulture industry, and with the viticulture industry priding itself on being sustainable and always looking at ways to lower their environmental impact, repurposing their old posts was the way to go.

With a tick from WorkSafe and resource consent processes in place, Repost has stepped up and is now able...