A Curious Tractor
Working with remote and First Nations communities to co-design essential goods like beds and washing machines that improve health, dignity, and daily living.
A Curious Tractor delivers practical, co-designed solutions to remote and First Nations communities by addressing overlooked but vital needs – such as safe beds and hygienic washing facilities – through its Goods Project. By working hand-in-hand with local communities, the organisation restores dignity, improves health outcomes, and fosters employment pathways while amplifying community voices. Their work delivers both immediate relief and long-term change, built on trust, innovation, and place-based partnership.
2025 Pitch
Funds Raised: $87,300
Pitched at Healthy People Healthy Planet event for funding to support an on-country mobile plastic recycling plant that will enable remote Aboriginal communities to convert local waste into durable materials used to manufacture essential goods like beds and washing machines. Funding will support the equipment setup, skills training, and initial operations in partnership with local leaders, embedding circular economy principles while creating employment and reducing landfill.
6 Month Impact
12 Month Impact
The funding built the on-country mobile plastic recycling facility.
A Curious Tractor put a hydraulic press, a computer-controlled router and a plastic shredder into a shed at Witta in Queensland and started turning waste plastic into bed parts. The press runs at 180 degrees. Each bed takes 36 kg of shredded plastic through it and carries 20 kg in the finished product. The facility is also what makes the next step possible. Because we now know what it costs to make a bed and how long it takes, we can build the same plant in a community and hand it over.
Impact Story:
When Nic pitched in Melbourne he told the room about Dianne Stokes, a Warumungu Elder in Tennant Creek who had described beds that could not be cleaned and washing machines that ended up burned in the community tip. He said that the next time he saw her, he hoped they would be building beds from plastic out of her own community.
The first full run off the press went to Maningrida, in Arnhem Land. Forty beds, pressed from shredded plastic at their facility in Queensland, were freighted up, and put together at Gamardi by local workers who were paid for the work. That is the whole loop the donors were asked to fund: waste plastic in one end, a bed a family can wash in the other, and a local person paid in the middle.
Since then every Stretch Bed has been routed and assembled at this facility. 177 Stretch Beds are now deployed across eleven communities, alongside 363 Basket Beds from the earlier design, and 22 washing machines.
Learn more about A Curious Tractor
Supporting Sustainable Development Goals:
