Auckland Airport repurposes unclaimed items to give back to local community

Auckland Airport (AKL) has found a sustainable, more meaningful way to offload lost and unclaimed items. While some airports routinely auction off unclaimed items, AKL Airport is distributing them to local homes and communities.

The airport said that while every effort is made to reunite lost or leftover items, around 9,000 kilograms of airport goods made their way to new homes in 2024. The distribution scheme is being run in partnership with ME Family Services (MEFS).

MEFS is an Auckland-based organization that offers an extensive range of free and professional services to support local families and the wider community. The group supports children, families and individuals in Māngere and Ōtāhuhu, and works with local schools and organizations ranging from housing and health providers, women’s refuge, migrant and refugee communities.

“At Auckland Airport we have a team who work hard to reconnect lost property with customers. However, there are times when we can’t match items left behind in our terminals with owners, so it’s great to give them a useful second life in our local community,” Auckland Airport Chief Operations Officer Chloe Surridge said in a statement.

Surridge said that MEFS sorts out the goods, washing or sanitizing and matching them with new owners. 

“There are toys, shoes, clothes, homewares– even the empty suitcases themselves once all the goods have been cleared out – all high-quality items which can continue being useful for someone new. We don’t want to see these items ending up in landfill or gathering dust at the terminal, it’s so much better if they are rehomed for good,” Surridge added.

Surridge said: “As a business we are working towards a target of reducing waste to landfill by 20% by 2030 compared to 2019. We’re currently tracking to 15% below 2019.”

According to Auckland Airport, two items most frequently left behind are prams – more than 200 in 2024 – and clothes, all of which are donated to MEFS to be repurposed. Lost property items are held between one to three months (depending on the item), before they are rehomed.

MEFS first started working with Auckland Airport on a small scale eight years ago. Now they are collecting donations regularly all over the AKL precinct and helping around 800 families per year.

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