Pegasus Post: June 16, 2022

6 Thursday June 16 2022
Saving the planet one skateboard
• By Emily Moorhouse
A 15-YEAR-OLD plans
to educate people on the
importance of recycling through
his skateboard business.
Neith Absalom has found a
way to reuse plastic bottle tops
by melting them down to make
skateboard decks.
Neith is a student at special
character school Ao Tawhiti in
the central city and got the idea
to make skateboards during a
self-directed learning session.
Neith decided he wanted to
take up rowing, but needed
funds to cover the cost of the
sport, inspiring him to start a
business that worked towards
eco-friendliness at the same
time.
After some researching, Neith
learned that number two plastic
(high-density polyethylene),
made out of plastic bottle tops
often isn’t recycled.
“It’s really easy to melt safely. I
had a thing with skateboards because
I really love skateboarding
so it turned into art pieces and
skateboards,” Neith said.
“The current crisis that we’re
in now is people kind of saying
it’s going to be alright and really
it’s not, and my whole thing is to
open people’s eyes up to the stuff
that we’re not recycling which is
quite easily recycled.”
Neith uses just over 1000 bottle
tops to make a board, shredding
the plastic before melting it
down at 120-150 deg C in a metal
frame using a “bake oven.”
Neith made his first board
last year with an old heat plate
he found on Trade Me, using a
wooden frame, but this burnt so
he switched to a metal frame that
his friend Monty shaped for him
in their school’s tech room.
‘As long as it’s not thrown
back into the rubbish I’m
happy’
– Neith Absalom
Now, he uses what he calls a
bake oven, but said it’s really just
an old barbecue.
It takes about one and a half to
two hours to fully melt the bottle
tops down, applying pressure
with a non-stick sheet.
Neith then takes the board to
the school’s tech room to smooth
out the edges and put holes in
it where the wheels would be
attached.
A problem Neith ran into during
the process was the lack of
grip on the board, which didn’t
matter if the board was put on
display as art, like the ones he
has in his school’s cafe and New
Brighton’s Pier People art gallery.
However, if they were being
used practically, they needed to
have more grip on the surface,
so his mother Natalie suggested
getting old coffee sacks that cafes
throw away and pressing them
into the board.
This would not only create a
cool pattern but gives the surface
of the board a much better grip,
Neith said.
He said his mother has often
chipped in to help with his
business and is very supportive
of him as well as his learning
adviser (teacher) Ian Hayes.
“He’s real good to me and
helping me get on the right track
and believes that I can do it and
MELT: Absalom shreds the
bottle tops in a shredder
before melting them down
into a steel mold in an old
barbecue.
nothing’s going to get in my
way.”
Now that Neith has figured out
the right process to making the
boards, he plans to start selling
them and working on getting his
brand out there.
ART: (Above left) – The
board Neith Absalom
designed for the Pier
People art gallery in New
Brighton and (above) the
one that sits on display in
Ao Tawhiti’s cafe.
He sells the boards for $120
each and said the money he
makes will go straight back into
the business for now before he
can start making a profit.
When asked if he was going to
take up rowing soon he said he
wasn’t sure anymore.
“I’ve kind of made this really
good eco business that I kind of
maybe want to carry on forever,”
he laughed.
When people ask Neith if the
boards are strong enough he says
they seem to be stronger than the
wooden ones you get from places
like The Warehouse.
“As long as you know how to
put a skateboard together then
you’re sweet,” he said.
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Matariki Artwork supplied by Paula Rigby ©2017