On 27 and 28 February the inaugural Circular Economy Hackathon was held in Feilding, hosting more than 40 participants from across the country.

Participants were diverse, ranging from high school students to university students, and gold card members.

The idea was to design and pitch a concept to recycle 97 wind turbine nacelles currently being decommissioned from the Te Rere Hau wind farm in the Tararua Ranges. There was a nacelle on site at the library, as well as workshops on business/startup skills and processes, and a site visit to the Fiberglass Developments factory to understand the materials.

The winning pitch was a team made up of students from PNGHS (Abby Bleakley, Shuhan Cao and Kattleya Harrowfield) and PNBHS (Josiah Lo) whose concept was four separate designs for bus stops that utilized the whole nacelles leaving no waste. They even modified the design and 3D-printed the concepts within the event's short timeframe. The team received the Meridian prize of $3,000.

Another team of PNGHS Year 10 students presented an ambitious idea to use nacelles to prevent erosion and protect coastal cities in NZ. This was awarded a special category prize for being the concept that tried to solve the biggest issue. These students were Olivia Calder Kerr, Harriet Fogarty, Fern Chamberlain and Eleanor McCowan. The photos show both teams receiving their certificates.