Students at Ōtūmoetai College are working on their businesses for another year of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme.

Students Megan Van Wyk, Robert Unsworth, McKayla Vickers, Sapphire Dudley, Milo Clark and Kelan Marshall drummed up an idea to upcycle wooden pallets that are ‘often wasted' around town, with the creation of their business, Pallet Plants.

The business is located on Instagram and Facebook, and they have been experimenting with adding different designs onto the side of the pots for soe decorative flair.

The students say that one problem they had to overcome while working on the project was getting access to the right tools.

'We ended up reaching out to our parents and using some of their power tools,” says production manager Kelan Marshall.

They say the aim of this project is to create less waste, and to sell a product that is both of use and friendly to the environment.

Tablet for handwashing dishes

Another group of students at the college, Helena Barber, Kayla Bowles and Gemma Wakerly, are teaming up to create Solid Solutions – a company producing eco-friendly dishwashing tablets.

Solid Solutions' ‘dish grit' comes in the form of a single-use dissovable dishwashing tablet for handwashing dishes. Each one is portion-controlled individually and packed in eco-friendly sachets. The dish grits are low-irritant and grey water friendly, making it ideal for campers.

Marketing and production manager of the project, Kayla Bowles, says the single biggest lesson they have learned is keeping up good communication.

She adds everyone is contributing by doing their own part, so you ‘need to communicate' with other people on your team, otherwise things can fall apart.

The students say another challenge they faced was testing different compounds for the tablets.

They say one of the initial recipes for the tablets would ‘explode' when it made contact with water in the sink, and it took ‘some time' before they had worked together to create their final product.

Solid Solutions can also be found on Facebook and Instagram.

Opportunity

The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme features a yearly competition for teams to compete to win a $20,000 prize pool as well as regional awards, cash prizes and tertiary scholarships. Students of the programme have the opportunity to attend national business competitions, events and go on partner programmes.

Ōtūmoetai College head of business Nyssa Poffley has been involved in taking students through the scheme for about 15 years. 'There's so much learning in it. The combination of skills required to run the businesses, the hands-on aspect, working with mentors – it's just excellent for the students.”