Estate Living Magazine New Beginnings - Issue 37 January 2019 | Page 40

C o m m u n i t y
L i v i n g
ALL
Haven’t we all at some point in our lives wished we could chuck the day job and launch out as entrepreneurs with
an innovative and successful idea? Some put those dreams on hold and start each new year as they did the last
… but others ‘just do it’. Like the young entrepreneurs at Rhino Wood, who saw the opportunity of combining a
by-product usually destined for landfill with a renewable resource to create a sustainable product that is taking
the building scene by storm.
the idea
Scott Sargent and Stuart Prior’s ‘day job’ was in the family
business, in the wax industry – not the kind that comes from
bees, nor the kind candles are made of: this was hard-core
wax, a by-product of the petro-chemical industry. They
found that one of the wax by-products was too hard for
the standard uses and started looking at alternatives. And
that alternative happened to be as a timber preservative.
After much chemical experimentation, a wax with the
‘right’ molecular structure was developed for use on
our local, sustainable, but soft, raw pine. And using their
patented process, the soft pine is modified to have the
strength and resilience of other building materials while
retaining the warmth and style that timber offers.