It’s time for us all to wake up and recognise what our actions are doing to our environment, our only home.
Time to recognise that everything is connected and we need to care about our impacts in order to care about ourselves, our families and our communities. Our future.
I am currently reading You Are Here – Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet by Thomas M. Kostigen. I am only half way through and already I am more awake to the links and connections of my actions on other parts of the world, on the lives of other human beings, eco systems and species. And not just the impact that my waste has on the people who handle once it leaves my home and office (the drivers and hand sorters) and truck it to Kate Valley landfill and what the impacts are on the land but my actions on the humans and other species overseas (China, the Amazon for example).
Here is a quote that resonated:
“Of course we should care about other people. Too often we don’t connect our morality with the practicality of everyday things in our lives.”
If we put a face to our actions we would change our behaviour. But, all too often the environmental and social impacts of our actions are not in our face, not even in our backyards – we just don’t see it. Most don’t even know where their waste goes (mostly up the road to Kate Valley Landfill or ‘recyclables’ off shore to other countries to ‘deal with’). And you don’t see the carbon emissions coming out of your tailpipe either.
We as individuals emit carbon emissions through our activities: electricity, eating, drinking, transportation, and what we consume for example. But, a lot of the products that we purchase are not made in New Zealand. Most come from China where there is a coal fired power plant being installed every 4 days and a town called Linfen that is constantly covered in brown, toxic smog that the residents breath in from those coal fired power plants (that also amongst other things emit carbon). Those coal fired power plants produce energy to make the products that are exported to NZ for us to purchase and ultimately waste. Constant production. Constant waste. And where does the carbon and smog emitted from those power plants go?
So, what do we do.
1. Wake up.
2. Ask questions – where does my product come from? Who makes it? How does it get here? What other people, environments or species does the production of that product (and its whole lifecycle) impact on? Where does my waste go? What sustainable business practices doese that company genuinely have?
3. Make changes to our purchasing habits. Start buying more New Zealand made (but still make sure those products are low or positive impact). Support local producers. Support sustianbly product, organic and fair trade. Make your own products. Live more simply – live with less. Grow your own.
4. Research the connections of impacts and talk about it – get others to start making changes too. Educate and stay informed.
5. Help. Donate time or money to good causes that are trying to or are making a difference to key areas of the world like the Amazon, your local environmental group or national organisation.
With China now exceeding the United States in carbon emissions the only way we can help them to reduce their emissions by 80% (which is what they need to do) is to start demanding sustainably produced products or we stop buying those products – talk to the importers, the retailers here in NZ and start demanding. And start demanding NZ options (and NZ producer responsibility programmes) too – and that will help the NZ economy as well.
It is no longer enough to expect others to make the changes first – it needs to come from us all starting today.
As read in Blessed Unrest social and environmental justice is linked. Your actions have an impact on other people’s lives and the environment and it is taking its toll. It is time to start changing our habits for a healthier future for all on this Earth.
Now. Today. Because it may already be too late for many. We may, instead, need to start thinking about how to live completely differently for tomorrow.
Some call it lazy blogging we call it extending knowledge – sharing the cool, interesting, inspiring, good things that we come across each week that are related to sustainability, environmentally positive living, waste and anything else we think you might like.
Celsias summarises Environment Minister Nick Smith’s climate challenges speech at the Australia New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference – here.
We have just had our new 2010/2011 White and Yellow Pages dropped off today and I thought it would be useful to highlight how they have said you can recycle your old phone books. This is useful information for those who are not so sure what they should do. For those with less than 4 books you can put them straight into the Yellow top recycling bin. For those with between 4 and 50 books you can drop off a local transfer stations or eco depots. Any more than that and you can either directly drop off at an Eco Depot or contact a paper recycler directly. Not putting more than four phone books in your recycling bin will be most likely because they will be too heavy.
Good on the Yellow pages for providing this information. The next step would be to provide an opt out service for those of us who are happy to use the internet and reduce the amount of paper used to make phone books and phone books are made from recycled paper not from virgin pulp.
There are a couple of other ideas for what to do with old phone books on the Oily Rag website (scroll down to ‘P’).
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.
This little green sign was sitting under the matagauri underneath the bronze dog statue at Lake Tekapo. Quietly letting locals and touristsknow that the beautiful area of Lake Tekapo is to kept clean and waste free.
“At my workplace we have recently implemented a strategy which Crown Research Institutes have been doing for a while. In your office you get a large cardboard tray for recycling and a tiny wee box for rubbish. Then you have to empty these yourselves at one of the depots. Unfortunately we don’t currently have a strategy for organics, so the depots only have landfill, glass/plastic, and paper/cardboard. The cleaners no longer empty bins in our offices and only empty these larger communal bins.”
Thanks Nicola. This is a great example of in-office waste managment.
Happened on this lovely educational song by Jack Johnson. It starts about a minute and half into the video. It’s a great little song to teach children about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. You can watch another version on You Tube here – it gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day! “Because three it’s the magic number… Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!”
While catching up on some blog reading over the weekend I spied the above inspiring yet simple waste station in the test kitchen of Martha Stewart Living Omnidmedia in New York via Martha Stewart’s blog. You can just see that there are more bins on the other side as well. I love the Landfill sign “This is quit-zies no take backs” and that they have a bin for the chickens!
What is great about this waste station is that it works within the function of that particular work space – the test kitchen; it includes a bin for organic waste (for the chickens) as well as the other types of waste recycling or recovery. Not only does the signage fit with the MSL brand but it is also super simple and easy to see what goes where.
When it comes to reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill from businesses and organisations it is interesting to note two things: 1) Anecdotal research* suggests that household waste accounts for about 3.8% of all waste to landfill (the rest is commercial and industrial and construction and demolition) and 2) for some reason those who recycle at home may not necessarily recycle at work. This shows that our next step to reduce waste to landfill needs to come in the commercial and industrial and construction and demolition areas. And the first easy step is to set up easy and efficient waste management in your own business. For some this might mean they have access to council provided bins or bags for others this will mean hiring bins from independent waste management businesses. Know the types of waste you produce and what the best way is to 1) reduce it and 2) to recycle it.
Promote the benefits to reducing waste and installing an efficient waste management system to ensure buy in from all levels of the oraganisation. There will be benefits to the bottom line with cost savings for procurement (buying less paper) and waste managment (reducing to a smaller bin). Make it relevant to your staff, easy to use and understand and possibly a little fun with some good signage. Lots of internal communications on the hows and whys is important.
It is also good to consider all types of workers in your business and organisation and how they produce waste. If you have people that spend most of their time on the road install a couple of small bags in their vehicles to take the rubbish. Office bound workers can walk a short distance to a centralised waste station on each floor or house the waste station in the cafeteria or work kitchen. It is also important that those who empty the waste bins understand the importance of ensuring the right waste goes into the right bin that is collected by your council – don’t forget to talk to the cleaners too. You could even promote this to your customers, suppliers and visitors. Work with suppliers to reduce packaging, work with customers to move to less packaging for your own product or service and promote the waste management system to visitors so they know what to do with the waste they might bring with them (like lunch packaging!).
Recognition and awareness of the waste your business or organisation produces, reducing that waste and then moving to a long term efficient waste system will have benefits for the environment, for the bottom line and for your brand value.
Here are some other waste station ideas:
MSL recycling centre
Recycling Frame from Matteria Shop via BLtd
Re-Nest Recycling Station
Recycle Bins from Lowes
The SIFT Office Waste System - Organics, Landfill, Recycling
I have noticed that a lot of the links I have included are American based. There are some great New Zealand companies around that provide different bins for different uses for waste management and even just suping up some old cardboard boxes will do the trick. For Cantabrians try Agpac who stock Urba bins. You can get an organics bin like the one in the SIFT photo as well as great stackable bins for all your different waste streams.
We would love to see any creative or just plain practical office or business recycling. Send us your photos and we will post them here on the SIFT blog.
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.
No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries he Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan.
After spending the past couple of years following No Impact Man’s (Colin Beavan) blog I was looking forward to reading his book on the year he spent (with his wife and child) living with no impact on the environment. If Colin Beavan and his family can make profound, lasting, positive environmental changes to their lifestyle in order to tackle climate change while living in a ninth floor apartment in the middle of Manhattan then I can certainly make some changes to my life (while I live in the much easier NZ suburbia – where I can grow my own vegetables for instance!).
This book (and the blog) is now a favourite. Beavan discusses what he has done (and is still doing) to live a lower impact life and the decision-making/thought processes he has while doing it. From zero waste to zero carbon transportation to eating only local food from the farmers market to not buying anything new to taking a reusable jar (for coffee) and taking napkins with him to switching off the electricity this book has many ideas (and ideals) we can take away to improve our lives to improve the health of the environment.
Not only does Colin Beavan give the facts of the why and the how but also discusses the social, cultural, political and global issues surrounding climate change and global warming (such as consumption and poverty). Beavan questions why we are all living the way we do and why we have not questioned it before. A cultural shift is required in order to solve the problem and Colin Beavan delved deeply into that new culture and came out the other side with a healthier body, family, life and a much lowered impact on the environment.
It is a must read for anyone who has made the decision to try to make a difference. I ordered mine from the library and had to wait a few weeks due to the number of other people wanting to read it but that’s a good thing. The more people who read it the better. It is an emotive and compelling read that will make you think. But, it also reminds you that you are human and we can make a difference, together (while having fun and laughing – lots of smiles from this book too).
Here’s the NoImpactMan blog and here’s the recently set up NoImpactProject which will help more people to live a no impact life. And hopefully in NZ we will see it soon but there is also a documentary about Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man year – here’s a preview.
Courage, conviction, strength, integrity, heart (and soul), conscious living and determination (with fun thrown in). This is No Impact Man and this is what we all need to hold true to in order to live differently for a better earth. Thank you Colin Beavan. I think I will read the book again!
Extra waste to landfill from earthquake damaged buildings will make an impact #eqnz - another long term impact from the quake02:07:15 PM September 08, 2010from web
