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VANESSA LAURIE/Stuff
Gary Mortlock takes the things other people throw away and gives them a second life.
For 30 years as a truck driver Gary Mortlock drove hundreds of kilometres between stops but now he can hardly drive down the street without seeing something that gets him out of his truck
“Sometimes on bottle recycling day, if there’s no other cars coming I pull over to the other side of the road and look at what’s in the bins. If there are some good bottles I jump out and grab them,” he says.
To the Waitara father these bottles are a form of treasure, just waiting to be made into drinking glasses and added to the shelf in his new shop Recycl’d Creations NP.
As well as turning bottles into glasses, the one time mechanic turns slabs of driftwood into chopping boards, children’s toys, shelves and pot holders.
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Old furniture, drawers and paintings are given a new lease of life and massive timber cable drums become bedheads, tables or even bunk beds for his 5-year-old son.
VANESSA LAURIE/Stuff
Show Mortlock an old 9kg gas bottle and he can build you just about anything.
His signature pieces involve recycled 9kg gas bottles which he can turn into freestanding fires, braziers and even pizza ovens.
“I put a request out on Facebook and went around gathering up all these old bottles. I had a couple of trailer loads full. I think my neighbours thought I was making a bomb,” he said.
It was his work with the gas bottles that gave him the push he needed to open a shop to sell his creations.
With encouragement from his friends he first listed the gas bottle fire places and braziers on Facebook. Orders came streaming in.
VANESSA LAURIE/Stuff
The former truck driver takes old things and makes them new.
He then began to get requests for bespoke creations including a brazier with the outline of Eddie, the mascot of English heavy metal band, Iron Maiden, drilled into the side. Others wanted Ford and Chevy logos, and one, the ghost mask from the Scream movies.
Mortlock will try his hand at anything. He sees the shop as his first step towards re-entering the workforce having left three years ago to look after this son and daughter.
“I just want to get off the benefit. Being on the benefit sucks,” he said.
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