Following the February 22nd earthquake, Greening the Rubble is back in full-swing utilising derelict urban properties. Established after the earthquake in September 2010, Greening the Rubble has successfully established a pocket-park on the corner of Victoria and Salisbury Street.  Although previous projects were put on hold due to February’s quake, Greening the Rubble has confirmed two future park additions for the city, one located on Riccarton Road, and the other on St. Asaph Street.
The organization is largely volunteer based, with local businesses donating products, design students lending their vision and many giving their time to create the relaxing spaces within Christchurch. If you would like to know more on the progress of sites, or if you are the landowner of a site that could be utilised, browse the website here.

They have a great resource of links as well to keep you informed about the Christchurch Rebuild and you can follow the organisation on Facebook too.

E-Waste Concerns

In September 2012, digital television will be rolled out across the country.  On Monday night, TV3 News looked at what the changeover will mean for the current hundreds of thousands of televisions not compatible with the impending network.  While some televisions can gain compatibility through the connection of a Free View box, many people will opt for a TV upgrade and throw out their old sets posing issues on how, and where to properly dispose of them. Watch the Video.

Jon Thornhill of RCN, stated that while there are current collection points where televisions can be disposed of correctly, there is a fee for doing so. The fee, Russell Norman from the Green party stated, is reflective of current sole responsibility on the consumer, suggesting that in order to have effective sustainable e-waste disposal, producer responsibility must be enforced.

Something that SIFT whole heartedly agrees with.

A Takeaway Container You Can Eat and the Individually Wrapped Prune

The 2011 Unpackit Packaging Awards recently took place. Wanaka Wastebusters ran the awards as part of the Unpackit Demystifying Packaging Choices project and with over 100 product nominations and near to 9,000 votes, the winners of the best and worst packaging were recently announced.

The Best Award went to the Potato Pak. Made in New Zealand the takeaway containers made from potato starch waste from potato chip production. They can be composted, fed to birds, pigs or fish and even eaten by humans!

Runners up for the Best Award went to the Speights swap-a-crates, promoting reuse and recycling of used beer bottles and the humble egg carton – reusable, recyclable and made from recycled paper.

The Worst Award went to the ridiculous Sunsweet Ones – individually wrapped prunes, each prune providing waste for landfill.

Runners up for poor producer packaging responsibility went to were Brother Ink Cartridges for excessive, non-recyclable packaging and Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate which comes in a ‘tin’ made from foil and cardboard destined for landfill.

The awards highlighted that even the best packaging does not have to be presented with glitz and glam and reflected customers’ awareness of good and bad packaging in relation to how wasteful it is.

Source: The Zero Waste Home

I think I have come across some of the best tips for zero waste living (or moving towards zero waste living) from The Zero Waste Home. These are simple, easy and impactful. A change a week is doable.

You can check them all out here.

How many of these do you do or think you could do?

The Guardian Sue Perkins Lucy Siegal Food Waste

While scouting the internet for yesterday’s food waste pic I spotted this great video from the Guardian newspaper’s Green Team from December 2009. In it comedian and broadcaster Sue Perkins (from the wonderful “The Supersizers Go..” and many other great shows) talks to Lucy Siegle from the Guardian about some great food storage tips to reduce food waste.

I love the idea of keeping a note of what is exactly in your freezer so you can see what is still left to be eaten. And that you can freeze cream and butter and salmon! Genius!

Watch the video.

Read more from Love Food Hate Waste (UK).

A new petition has come through to SIFT from one of our new projects (and through my connections with the Lincoln Envirotown Trust) to make our voice heard to the government that we want to rebuild Christchurch sustainably. This is a great idea and I only hope that lots of people sign it (like all those who signed the pledge and more!) and that the town leaders, government, city planners and designers all listen.

This is a fantastic opportunity to rebuild Christchurch for a future whereby the buildings and citizens of the city have a positive environmental impact at all levels of sustainability (and are ready for the impacts of climate change).

After finding that there is currently no leadership on this issue Lou Warren (from over the hill in Diamond Harbour) started the petition on change.org.

You can sign the petition here and we encourage as many Cantabrians and New Zealanders alike to sign it and let our voice be heard (now’s our chance): “We, the people of Canterbury, the people of New Zealand and our friends internationally, want you to deliver a well-planned, environmentally sustainable re-build of Christchurch.”

Thanks to Lou for setting this up and we look forward to seeing how many people sign, who listens and the plans for our lovely city.

If you know of someone worthy of the title of Environmental Champion then consider entering them or the project into the 2011 Green Ribbon Awards through the Ministry for the Environment. There are twelve catergories and entries must be received by 5pm Friday the 15th of April.

The categories are:

• Protecting our biodiversity
• Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions
• Caring for our water
• Minimising our waste
• Improving our air quality
• Protecting our coasts and oceans
• Community action for the environment: Young People
• Community aciton for the environment: Volunteers and Not-for-Profit organisations
• Environment in the media
• Small businesses making a difference
• Environmentally responsible large businesses
• Central and local government stepping up.

Press Release

Green Ribbon Awards Nomination form

A nice little Friday interlude – a video of the Johnson family from the blog Zero Waste Home (USA). Everything looks so uncluttered and simplified and achievable. It would be great to be able to take our own containers for meat, cheese and fish as Bea Johnson does to our supermarkets. We look forward to reading more about what the Johnson family do to be zero waste.

Zero Waste Home Video - click on the image to go to the site to watch

Have a read of the blog and you might some new ideas and tips to make your life one with less waste.

Unpackit have listed the best and the worst packaging that has been sent in so far.

You can keep sending in nominations until the 20th of March to go into the draw to win a weekend for two in the lovely Wanaka.

Image found via trademe

Why don’t we bring back the glass bottle for milk and other liquid drinks? They can be reused over and over and recycled many times unlike plastic which has potential health issues with leaching chemicals and definite resource issues as plastic comes from a finite resource.

Found this article from TVNZ in 2005 on when glass milk bottles disappeared and this article on the 2010 WWF New Zealand Eco Design Competition winners – a team from Massey University with ‘No Frills, Just Refills’ . A great idea for refill stations in supermarkets.

Don’t forget to check out UnPackit and send in your ideas for best and worst packaging from NZ.