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No Frills Just Refills - WWF NZ Eco-Competition Winners

It’s been rather a busy one this week. Lots of projects on the going that lets SIFT continue on its journey of being a catalyst for change in reducing how much of our waste goes here.

But, from around the world, there have come up some inspiring, interesting, informative, innovative and impactful ideas  including these:

• More ideas for reducing your disposables use from The Good Human.
• Green postcards perfect for that arty yet greeny someone.
• Hello! Glass Straws – perfect idea – no more plastic straws!  – Just don’t forget to get a little brush cleaner too!
• Excellent Life Cycle Analysis of washable versus disposable nappies.
• Making it cool – we all know that the best way to change behaviour is to make it cool – check out this video of some extreme recycling – love it!
• Make Do and Play – great new website on making do with what you have and adding a few reusable connector items for some great play time.
• Haven’t tried this yet but looks like an excellent reuse of cardboard – the cardboard laptop stand.
• Waste Art = Judith Selby Land and Richard Lang collect beach plastic and turn it into sculptures.
• A great video on Recycling bed mattresses – is this being done here in NZ anywhere?
• Millions and millions of disposable coffee cups end up in landfill each year so Starbucks is sponsoring a Betacup design competition to find a solution. We have a source that says that 4.75 million non recyclable non-biodegradable coffee cups are landfilled each year in NZ – yikes! We look forward to seeing the winning solution. Also Starbucks are planning to have only reusable or recyclable coffee cups by 2015 – good move.
• A very simple and easy to understand blog post from Simply Organic on how to make your own compost.
• Are you a knitter or crafter? Ever thought of havesting the yarn from second hand jumpers? Great post on how to here. It will save you money and have less of an impact on the environment.
• Another great Re-Nest find, Nature’s Paper. Paper made in Australia from left over wheat straw – genius idea!
• And finally the WWF New Zealand Eco-Design competition has a winner – No Frills Just Refills. A new milk bottle design for supermarkets that is 100% recyclable and reusable and with a self-service milk station (the 21st century Milk Bar?) to cut down on emissions from transportaion and production of plastic milk bottles. Plus, the design is excellent. This is the kind of innovation New Zealand needs to become more sustainable. Congratulations to the team – we would definitely buy this from our supermarket!