Wanaka-based entrepreneur Matt Butler’s latest invention for outdoor adventurers tackles the weighty issue of rubbish and it is already attracting global interest.
Mr Butler, the founder of Kea Outdoors, has developed Kea Stash, a rubbish-compacting bag — which is leak-free, smell-free and reusable — for mess-free adventures.
A crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter had already attracted more than $52,500 from more than 520 backers, with four weeks still to go, and the next step was to complete the final product prototype with a delivery date of early next year, Mr Butler said.
The initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and the closure of borders wiped out Mr Butler’s fly fishing guiding business and he quickly pivoted to create another outdoors-related business.
His first product was the Kea Kit, an outdoor survival kit for adventurers that makes preparing much more comprehensive and easier.
Seeing rubbish in the outdoors was something that had annoyed him for a long time, Mr Butler said. Also, he liked to head away into the outdoors for four or five days, carrying ‘‘proper’’ food, but would end up carrying out a bag of rubbish, which would bounce around on his back and also leak.
He believed the issue had not been tackled because it was not a particularly sexy subject. Working on the project since December, he settled on a bag which could be rolled up from the bottom, crushing the contents. The bags were being made in China and he was also launching several other new products, Mr Butler said.
