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Friday, October 15th, 2010 by SophieR
This weeks favourites: All things Kiwi
I have had the priviledge of receiving a very large tub of home-made organic Kanuka honey. I think that is a hobby that should be given our support – the bee’s do some pretty good pollination work, and the output of their hard work is the delicious golden stuff, that I have to admit – I do eat with a teaspoon! Support local beekeepers or learn the trade yourself! www.nzartisanhoney.co.nz
I realize that this is Auckland based, but perhaps this could stand as a testament to Canterbury holding a Green Film Festival in the future:
Each film in the festival has been chosen for its relevance to Auckland’s environmental challenges.
www.kaipatiki.org.nz
FeltAid
Felt crafters have donated all the items to be sold – with proceeds going to the Red Cross Canterbury Appeal. Some truly talented artists.
www.felt.co.nz/browse/user/feltaid
Recycle Boutique
I had to mention this one – If you are into vintage glam, you are really going to dig this website! This online shop completely eliminates any preconceived notions that second hand clothes are drab or uncool. The only downside – there are stores every where but Christchurch! In the meantime, if you are travelling around New Zealand, keep an eye out for one of the stores.
www.recycleboutique.co.nz
Let the kids eat dirt!
Well perhaps not literally, but I was pleased to read an article in Good Magazine that stated that Kiwi parents are rebelling against cotton wool parenting. The new trend is being called ‘free range parenting’. Perhaps kiwi parents will pioneer the cause, that fresh air and time outdoors really is more beneficial than indoor play.
This weeks favourites: All things Kiwi
I have had the priviledge of receiving a very large tub of home-made organic Kanuka honey. I think that is a hobby that should be given our support – the bee’s do some pretty good pollination work, and the output of their hard work is the delicious golden stuff, that I have to admit – I do eat with a teaspoon! Support local beekeepers or learn the trade yourself!
I realize that this is Auckland based, but perhaps this could stand as a testament to Canterbury holding a Green Film Festival in the future:Each film in the festival has been chosen for its relevance to Auckland’s environmental challenges.
FeltAid 
Felt crafters have donated all the items to be sold – with proceeds going to the Red Cross Canterbury Appeal. Some truly talented artists.
Recycle Boutique
I had to mention this one – If you are into vintage glam, you are really going to dig this website! This online shop completely eliminates any preconceived notions that second hand clothes are drab or uncool. The only downside – there are stores every where but Christchurch! In the meantime, if you are travelling around New Zealand, keep an eye out for one of the stores.
Let the kids eat dirt!
Well perhaps not literally, but I was pleased to read an article in Good Magazine that stated that Kiwi parents are rebelling against cotton wool parenting. The new trend is being called ‘free range parenting’. Perhaps kiwi parents will pioneer the cause, that fresh air and time outdoors really is more beneficial than indoor play.
Tags: Friday favourites
Posted in Friday favourites, General, News on Sustainability, Sustainability Resources | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 by SophieR
As Christchurch works through day five, post earthquake, demolition of some of our most precious heritage sites is underway. Along with these heritage sites is the purposeful demolition of buildings of less historical importance, but ones that acted as landmarks within the inner suburbs.
Broken mortar, bricks, aluminum, glass, plastic piping, drains, concrete and the silt resulting from liquefaction – the next step will be figuring where all this useless material will be disposed. Certainly in times of emergency, recycling or careful disposal of building waste becomes irrelevant, as the priority remains clearing the streets of dangerous debris for the inhabitants of the city.
Is there room for future deliberation of how we dispose / recycle demolition waste when there is an emergency situation such as the events of 4th September 2010?
Currently there has been 17,000 claims made to EQC of house damage, and with the estimated cost climbing over $1 billion, the focus will no doubt turn to restoring or rebuilding as quickly and cheaply as possible. There will be an impact on Christchurch’s waste stream, but as with most post earthquake processes, the extent and repercussions of the damage will reveal itself in the months and years to come.
As Christchurch works through day five, post earthquake, demolition of some of our most precious heritage sites is underway. Along with these heritage sites is the purposeful demolition of buildings of less historical importance, but ones that acted as landmarks within the inner suburbs.
Broken mortar, bricks, aluminum, glass, plastic piping, drains, concrete and the silt resulting from liquefaction – the next step will be figuring where all this useless material will be disposed. Certainly in times of emergency, recycling or careful disposal of building waste becomes irrelevant, as the priority remains clearing the streets of dangerous debris for the inhabitants of the city.
Is there room for future deliberation of how we dispose / recycle demolition waste when there is an emergency situation such as the events of 4th September 2010?
There has been 17,000 claims made to EQC of house damage* and with the estimated cost climbing over $1 billion, the focus will no doubt turn to restoring or rebuilding as quickly and cheaply as possible. There will be an impact on Christchurch’s waste stream, but as with most post earthquake processes, the extent and repercussions of the damage will reveal itself in the months and years to come.
 Rubble from Christchurch Earthquake * Information sourced from www.stuff.co.nz
Tags: Christchurch earthquake, demolition, waste
Posted in Business & Sustainability, General, News on Sustainability, SIFT, Waste Management | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 by SophieR
Southern Pine Products Ltd was established in Christchurch in 1999, and fast became one of the South Island’s biggest producers of pine and medium-density fibre board (MDF) building products.
Southern Pine has a strong commitment to environmental sustainability within their business operations. Membership of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC Certified), Telarc Sal registered and Environmental Choice New Zealand accreditation are strong selling points in an industry more readily associated with deforestation than environmental preservation.
Not only are Southern Pine Products’ forests responsibly managed, they are implementing innovative solutions to lessen their environment impact by reducing production waste that would otherwise be heading straight into Canterbury’s Kate Valley landfill. The dust resulting from MDF production was a major cause of economic and waste concern “the dust had been costing $15,000 a month to dispose of, which led the company to explore other options”*.
It was found that the MDF dust could be processed through a new alternative system into briquette form to become bio-fuel for industrial use. EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority) helped fund the build of a briquette press.
At the time, it was foreseen that there could be a potential reduction of approximately 600-900 tonnes of waste going into Canterbury landfill each year. Southern Pine Products then started to look at local companies who could potentially use the briquettes and discovered Moffatt’s Flower Company located nearby. Moffatt’s Flower Company chose to adopt Southern Pine Products latest waste reduction/bio-fuel technology, and had their burners (used to heat two hectares of greenhouses), converted to use the alternative bio fuel (instead of burning coal). The transfer process was also financially supported by EECA.
As a result there has been a reduction in annual CO2 emissions by 3,100 tonnes, while Moffatt’s Flower Company saves $98,000 a year in fuel costs*.
A financially rewarding business move, Southern Pine Products benefits by repackaging waste into a new revenue stream while Canterbury benefits from less waste to landfill, and fewer carbon emissions.
For information and case studies on how businesses can be more energy efficient, visit www.eecabusiness.govt.nz
* http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/eeca+guiding+businesses+green+win-win
 Photos Copyright Southern Pine
Tags: recycling timber waste, Southern Pine
Posted in Business & Sustainability, News on Sustainability, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Friday, August 27th, 2010 by Admin
 Use egg cartons in the garden and then compost them. Another week has flown by. The SIFT week has been full of a couple of new potential applicants, board papers, research, current projects management and some admin thrown in for good measure.
Lots of different things have popped up through our google reader and other newsletters, here’s the best links for you this week:
- Past SIFT project Envirocomp has received $30,000 through the MfE’s Waste Minimisation Fund to carry out a feasibility study on expanding their nappy composting. More here.
- Photos of dumped e-waste being searched through by Ghanians looking for the valuable metals to sell. Not the best photos – this is quite sad and should not be occuring. More here from The New York Times.
- Waveney from Rubbish Free’s roundup of their weekend at the Nelson Eco Fest here.
- Have you found your WalkScore yet? More here from World Changing. Walk Score is based on Google Maps so it you know there are more services and utilities in your area that would make your Walk Score better update Google Maps with the information.
- Philipe Stark has designed home and urban usable wind turbines. From Greenpages. Now they would be a stylish addition to any home.
- Creative ways to drink tap water from Re-Nest here.
- Molly Eagen is a 25 year living in Minneapolis, USA and is attempting, as part of her thesis, to live 100 days without oil. This is a well researched blog that provides great ideas and new ways to live for all of us. Oil permeates nearly all facets of our 21st century lives so we are looking forward to seeing how she gets on living without it. Could you live 100 days without oil? (Originally via Re-Nest).
- Interactive map that shows the Earth breathing – tracking global CO2 emissions in real time. It takes 14 minutes for New Zealand to clock up 1000 tonnes. It is very well done and you can scroll over each country to see the stats.
- The biodegradable pen from GOOD USA.
- The United Nations Environment Programme has released a new report on sustainability and behaviour change. This is a great tool for all of you in communications, marketing and social change. Developed in conjunction with our favourite Sustainability Communications organisation – Futerra. You can download the report here (originally via Celsias).
- Love this video celebrating the 2010 World Humanitarian Day here.
- This is another great infographic …The National Geographic looks at how much water is embedded in everything we use (note these measurements may be different for NZ). Scroll to the right to see a whole raft of different products from meat, vege, oil, energy, solar. Very interesting.
- This has been one of the blog topics this week so we might as well add it to the list too – Japanese firm Blest is making fuel out of plastic. The video shows how it is all done. We like the way that the machine is portable and could be used for smaller or remote sites.
- Maybe we should just do a graphics blog post! Here is another one from the BBC showing how big different things are against the size of your own country - things like the Pakistan floods, the Pyramids, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, World War II and the Twin Towers.
- Also from the BBC Mexico has completely banned plastic bags and if you use them you go to jail! More here.
That will definitely keep you going for the weekend and we hope it is a waste free one!
P.S You might have noticed that our waste counter is lighter than it was last week. We have updated it to be in line with the waste statistics from the Christchurch City Council for the year to June 2010 which is 179,207 tonnes to Kate Valley Landfill. That’s a 20% drop on last year meaning our waste counter would have been way out. It was updated by the nice people at HairyLemon.
*Image via here.
Tags: 100 days without oil, Blest, Breathing Earth, CO2 emissions, e-waste, Envirocomp, Futerra, Google, mfe, oil, Philipe Stark, plastic, plastics, Rubbish Free, SIFT, sustainability communications, UNEP, Walk Score, waste, Waste Minimisation fund, water use, wind
Posted in Friday favourites, News on Sustainability, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 by Admin
The recent book of choice which I have just finished is Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken. Borrowed from the library it is so good I decided to buy a hard copy to keep and luckily found a second hand one on Trade Me. I will be able to read it again and highlight passages that were significant, moving, interesting and enlightening – because there were many.
Blessed Unrest is a book about the growing movement and connectedness of a vast range of thousands of different but like minded people who run organisations with the sole purpose of saving humanity, regeneration and restoration, social justice and environmental justice. After spending days reading about pollution, waste, climate change (and worrying about how we all need to start making changes today), social injustices and environmental devastation and disrespect it is refreshing to read a book that captures all the good things that are happening in the world.
Paul Hawken likens the movement to the body’s immune system. A quiet but strong immune response to the diseases (we have created) on the Earth. He starts off by delving into history to see where the movement came from; from Ghandi to Rosa Parks to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Rachel Carson where the movement started it now spans the entire globe with organisations like World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, 350.org, Friends of the Earth and even SIFT. The world is made up of a vast network of social and sustainability focussed organisations – focus areas include the arts, education, poverty, children, families, women’s rights, animals, gardening, sustainability, climate change, waste, employment and more. The hope is that the work these organisations carry out (trust, foundations, NGOs, non profits, some corporations, volunteer groups) will prevail over the destructive forces from a small number of large organisations. This book highlights the good in humans and the need for social and environmental change that must come if we are to survive.
It is definitely a book to read and helps to remind you of all of the good work that is being done on the Earth to enable it to be healthy for future generations. There are some excellent passages and it is well researched with a long bibliography and includes a taxonomy on all of the different areas of focus and the number of organisations working in that area. You need to get a full understanding of the vastness, the connectedness of all of these organisations and their good impacts in order to feel positive – don’t just stick to the general media to keep you informed!
You can read more about Blessed Earth here and browse all of the listings of organisations from around the world here at WiserEarth (set up by Paul Hawken). As their website tag line says “Together we act as one” and it is great that SIFT is apart of this network.
There is so much more that could be said but reading it will do it justice more.
Tags: Blessed Unrest, change, climate change, destruction, disease, environmental justice, humanity, immune response, Paul Hawken, social justice, Sustainbility, waste, WiserEarth
Posted in News on Sustainability, Pratical Action, Sustainability Resources, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Friday, August 13th, 2010 by Admin
 SIFT Vision Poster on the wall at our After 5 Drinks and Nibbles event on Tuesday
Welcome to the end of another working week. We met some potential new projects, had a bit of an After 5 drinks and nibbles event for few key people at our offices, met with current projects to get updates and generally continued to do what we do.
On the way we also found some interesting tid bits that you might be interested in perusing. Here are this week’s Friday Favourites:
- A great article here from Nick Potter on his affair with the word “sustainability” – what will be the new words? You can see more of what Nick Potter does on his website Re-Be.
- A dining room made from recycled plastic bottles that floats – a unique eating experience here.
- Another great link from the team at Re-Nest who found an article in a recent Martha Stewart Living magazine about using real peanuts for packing (definitely better than styrofoam “peanuts”).
- The latest Environmental Indicators Quarterly from the Ministry for the Environment here (pdf).
- A great little tutorial on how to make reusable sandwich bags – (no velcro, glue, and only minimal sewing) – great idea here.
- A move in the US to replace ornamental gardens with food producing gardens here.
- More disrespect for and damage to the environment – will the fine work? More here.
- The kitchen of the future – bringing the vege garden inside – more here.
- The fridge that grows food not just stores it here.
Have a great waste free weekend.
Tags: bags, damage, disrespect, environment, Friday favourites, future, kitchen, links, Martha, mfe, Nick Potter, plastic, Re-nest, Recycled, reusable
Posted in Friday favourites, News on Sustainability | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 by Admin
Back in 2008 former Christchurch couple Waveney Warth and Matthew Luxon decided to live rubbish free for a year in order to reduce their impact on the environment. Their trials, tribulations, truths and learnings were all documented on their blog and it was really inspiring to read what they were up to and how they were making it work. And they did make it work.
They have just launched a new website with all the resources the rest of us need in order to go rubbish free. We are definitely going to pick up one of their guides and I have been looking to find an alternative to plastic wrap and they have them. Yay! Really excited for them.
You can check out the new website here.
This website is definitely going in the favourites tab!
Tags: blog, environmental impact, guide, landfill, resources, rubbish, Rubbish Free.co.nz
Posted in News on Sustainability, Pratical Action | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 by Admin
On Monday afternoon I attended the opening of Mastagard and Southern Demolition’s new Eco-Recycling Plant. Centrally located just down from AMI Stadium on Wilsons Road the new transfer recycling facility is a joint venture between Mastagard and Southern Demolition. It will take paper, cardboard, magazines, plastic film, plastic bottles, timber, steel, Gib board, concrete and green waste “leaving the bear minimum going to landfill”. Mastagard sees this new transfer facility as a solution to increasing recycling and reuse of waste products. The eco-recycling transfer station is open to businesses, waste operators and the community.
It was a rather chilly afternoon for the opening but the highlight was the Hon. Rodney Hide (National MP) arriving in a Canterbury Waste Services truck! He said that he is “proud and pleased to declare the new transfer station open” and “it is good to see businesses making money while doing good”.
Mastagard’s General Manager Sebastian Stapleton sees the need for “responsible and progressive leadership within our industry”. We agree that the waste industry does need start taking the lead (and to work collaboratively) on providing solutions for reducing our impact on the environment – this new eco-recycling transfer facility is a good example of this. Ofcourse as we have said before the best way to reduce waste is to reduce consumption.
Here are a few key quotes from Mastagard General Manager Sebastian Stapleton:
- The goal is to be a professional, dependable, highly efficient environmental solutions provider.
- It is incredibly important that we are able to create a closed loop recycling process with accountability and integrity.
- It’s no longer acceptable for a person, business or waste collection company to put material in the right coloured bins and simply assume that someone has recovered it and processed it in accordance with environmental best practice.
Mastagard have recovered materials processing sites across the city (they also collect all of the recyclables from Westland). Their Wigram site processes construction and demolition materials such as Gib board which is turned into powder for use in fertiliser and concrete which is separated into grades for re-use in roading and construction. Their Bromley site processes cardboard and organics as well as plastics such as the Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme collection of baleage wrap. The plastics recycling facility was opened last year and you can see photos from that launch here. Southern Demolition is the South Island’s largest demolition and demolition waste recoverer.
Congratulations to Mastagard and Southern Demolition for taking Canterbury a step closer towards a sustainable future. Their work in waste recovery along with all the other industry players will help us to reduce our waste and the impact that has on our environment.
You can view photos of my site visit to Mastagard’s Bromley processing station here.
Photos below from the launch are from my phone so not too good. Good photos to come.
 Hon. Rodney Hide arriving  Emcee Jim Hopkins and Mastagard GM Sebastian Stapleton  Hon. Rodney Hide and Emcee Jim Hopkins  Baled Gloss Paper from Mastagard  HDPE Plastic Milk Bottles from Mastagard  HDPE Recycled Plastic Pellets from Mastagard  Plastic Waste film from Mastagard
Tags: cardboard, landfill, Mastagard, paper, plastics, recycling, Rodney Hide, Southern Demolition, waste
Posted in Events, News on Sustainability, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Monday, May 24th, 2010 by Admin
 Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme - Photo copyright Agpac Congratulations to the team at Plasback for achieving government accreditation of their Voluntary Product Stewardship scheme. They received their accreditation for on farm collecton and then recycling of agricultural plastics along with the Glass Packaging Forum who are focussed on reducing glass that goes to landfill. Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme is the first for the agricultural sector. SIFT granted Agpac (who administer the scheme) funds for a Canterbury focussed education campaign for farmers on the collection scheme. Along with the development of an easy to understand brochure for farmers there was also radio, tv and press advertising. Through the Plasback scheme Agpac are looking to collect 200 tonnes of agricultural plastics by the end of this winter from Canterbury farms.
When the plastics have been collected they are sent to Mastagard for recycling and then reused as recycled plastic feedstock for new products.
The Hon. Dr. Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment said in the press release ” I would encourage other industries to recognise the economic and environmental benefits of product stewardship and get accredited” – we agree.
Tags: agpac, agriculture, farm, landfill, Mastagard, mfe, Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith, Plasback, plastics, product stewardship
Posted in News on Sustainability, SIFT Projects, Waste Management | No Comments »
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