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Posts Tagged ‘environmental sustainability’
Friday, December 11th, 2009 by Admin
Now is the perfect time to put the word out in your office for all unwanted and unused stationery to be brought back to the stationery cupboard. Imagine all those pens, pencils, notepads, paper clips and gluesticks floating about in desk drawers that aren’t being used. Once you have the stationery back you can work out what you no longer need to buy. This will save your organisation money and save resources used in making new stationery. And ulimately reduce the amount of waste from stationery because you didn’t need to buy more to add to the pile! Reduction in comsumption = reduction in waste.
 Pen chandelier from ecofriend.org
Tags: amnesty, consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, money, notepads, pencils, pens, recycling, reduction, save, stationery, unwanted, waste, Waste Management
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 by Admin
 Monday’s GreenBiz PlainsFM podcast is now online here. Linda Norris talks to Fiona Edwards from Kinley Education about Recyclopaedia and resusing waste for education.
Tags: environmental sustainability, Green Business, Kinley Education, linda norris, Plains FM, Recyclopaedia, SIFT
Posted in News on Sustainability, SIFT Projects | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 by Admin
 Solray Energy Algae to Bio-crude oil plant Last Friday we had the pleasure of attending the official opening of the Solray Energy Algae to Bio-Crude Oil plant at the Bromley Waste Water Treatment plant. It was a lovely warm spring day with not much of a smell, thankfully.
SIFT funded the early stage proof of concept mini trials at the Bromley Sewage Treatment plant (run by CCC) over the past three years plus the business case for algae and financial due diligence.
It was a great turn out with lots of cameras, all stakeholders, local iwi Ngai Tahu and local Councillors as well as the Hon. Gerry Brownlee (who is the Minister for Economic Development and the Minster for Energy and Resources), who officially opened the plant.
 Solray Energy's Chris Bathurst with SIFT Board Member Prof. Emeritus Arthur Williamson Chris Bathurst, the brains behind the project, said that it has taken 9 years to get to where they are today. They have successfully made crude oil from algae grown at the ponds (and started a lawn mower for Hon. Gerry Brownlee to use to prove it, see below for photo).
This project is a great example of public-private partnership in action with Solray Energy, NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) and the Christchurch City Council working together to make the project a success. Algae to biofuels at this scale is apparently the first in the world. The project uses NIWA’s 5ha demonstration high rate algae pond that gets CO2 pumped into it, which gets trapped and encourages algae to grow. The algae is constantly mixed so it grows in colonies and is then pumped across the road to Solray where it is heated to above 300 degrees celsius in a super critical water reactor (SCWR), which mimics the natural process of turning it into crude oil (very similified explanation!). To remove the algae from the bio-crude oil they use a solvent which is then recycled and the algae residue is used as fertiliser. The bio-crude oil is then separated into petrol (20%), diesel (45%) and bitumen (20%) plus a few others. The whole lifecycle is all on one site making it easier to manage and monitor.
The super critical water reactor (SCWR) is very innovative and inventive. It was designed and built in New Zealand by Solray Energy, which means NZ can reap the benefits of the technology. As well as providing a possible new way to make fuel (instead of using fossil fuels – Hon. Gerry Brownlee stated NZ uses 183,000 barrels of oil equivalent a year) this technology could also allow for small scale carbon capture and localised use of the technology. It is also a cheap and simple way to harvest the algae. NIWA Chief Executive John Morgan happily presented two vials (one of green water algae and the other bio-crude oil) to Hon. Gerry Brownlee to give to New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key.
 Algae and Bio-crude oil vials for PM John Key  Hon. Gerry Browlee with the lawnmower & NIWA's John Morgan After getting the lawn mower to start for the cameras and Hon. Gerry Brownlee to mow some scrub on the banks of the pond the opening was formally closed by a karakia from an iwi representative from Ngai Tahu.
You can find more information about our involvement in the project here.
 Bio-crude oil and fuel  Hon. Gerry Brownlee being presented the vials by NIWA's John Morgan  Solray Energy Algae to Bio-crude oil plant
Tags: algae, bio-crude oil, bitumen, CCC, climate change, community, diesel, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, fuel, petrol, reuse, sewage, Solray Energy, Waste Management, waste water
Posted in Events, SIFT Projects, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 by Admin
Radio New Zealand National is somewhat underrated for its level of interesting, informative and on-trend information. This past Saturday This Way Up looked into the amount of food waste that there is each year, where it comes from and what we can do. They state that there are no reliable figures from the Ministry for the Environment for food waste in New Zealand but site a 2003 Australian study that said that 13% of all waste is from food – that’s around $500 per person per year. They go on to say that this ofcourse has a significant impact on the levels of Methane in our landfills which is around 35 times more impactful and damaging than CO2 in the atmosphere.
In 2008, in Christchurch, 23% of our waste is “kitchen” waste which we can assume will be mostly food, that has gone to landfill. That’s 50,000 kg of organics that could have been composted (there are no figures on how much comes from household and how much from producers, manufacturers and retailers).
 Waste by Tristram Stuart This Way Up interviewed Tristram Stuart who wrote the book Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal who talks about how the UK government “raked through 2000 homes” in order to see what was in their rubbish and the impact of food waste from retailers and manufacturers. He also discusses how the UK government carried out an educational campaign on how to reduce their food waste (such as food storage, cooking and using left overs) and it worked saving many hundreds of millions of pounds.
This Way Up then they interviewed both Foodstuffs and Progressive (although Foodstuff didn’t give an interview and stated it “didn’t have any figures on the problem” of food waste from the supermarkets). Progressive state that nationally they are sending 20,000 tonnes of food waste to landfill and that “they are actively monitoring and measuring this”.
Interestingly, Progressive are looking to reduce their carbon footprint by 40% by 2014 on 2006 levels and to reduce their food waste by 1%. Progressive are also rolling out a feedstock programme so that their organic food waste goes to livestock and have given manager’s the opportunity to reduce prices that have gone past their sell by date (nothing is sold that has gone past its used by date and they discuss the health and safety around products that have gone past their used by date but could still be okay to eat and they are looking into a programme that can give this healthy but gone past its used by date to the needy). They are also using better food ordering and waste reporting systems.
This is an interesting insight into food waste in New Zealand and we feel there is a quite a gap in knowledge on our food waste.
 Food Waste that can still by eaten Source: Flickr JBloom
Tags: climate change, CO2, consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, food waste, Foodstuffs, kitchen, methane, organics, Progressive, RadioNZ National, This Way Up, Tristram Stuart, waste
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 12th, 2009 by Admin
 Kiwi Christmas Card from Mapua Trading Co Seems a little odd to be thinking of Christmas this far out but in order to reduce waste for Christmas you need to do a little bit of planning. Here are a few ideas on how to reduce waste this Christmas (and will help save $ too):
- Christmas Cards – Christmas Cards are the first Christmas task to think about (especially with looming postal dates for overseas friends and family (only a couple of weeks to go). The Packaging Accord estimates that 68 million christmas cards were sent last year which is a lot of trees! Look through your house for any unused Christmas cards and send those, or save last year’s Christmas cards and use the front as your card or make your own cards out of card, fabric, buttons, felt, paint, crayons – what ever is already in your house. If you have children involve them too. They can draw Christmas designs on each of the cards. If you need to buy Christmas cards and envelopes buy those made from recycled paper, made with vegetable dyes and can be composted. Try FernbirdEcostore or Vanilla Soul.
- Any left over food goes into the compost bin. Cooked meats are great for sandwiches for lunches following Christmas day or maybe have a vegetarian Christmas for even lower environmental impact (don’t forget to go organic and free range as much as possible especially the Turkey).
- Use old Christmas Cards as present tags.
- For zero waste Christmas Cards send e-cards instead. Try Paperless Post.
- Wrapping paper – use what you have already, use recycled paper or use newspaper. Only wrapping paper that can be recycled or composted (as most traditional Christmas paper can’t be recycled or composted due to the gloss on the paper and the inks).
- Or try furoshiki – the Japanese tradition of wrapping your presents in reusable cloth.
- Give presents with zero to minimal packaging such as “experience” presents or vegetable seedlings, potted plants or baking.
- Bake and make your own candy.
- Buy a potted Christmas tree that you can reuse over and over for a few years. If you buy a cut down tree remember to put in your Green Bin (if it fits!) or take it to one of the ecodepots in Christchurch (or your local refuse station).
- Use only the decorations you have already or make decorations out of paper bits and old material.
- Buy vintage, second hand or regift an old present.
- Or better yet buy a product that has recycled content – made from something else. Some great ideas here from Mapua Trading Co.
- If you need extra plates, cups and cutlery use compostable products not plastic.
- Make your own crackers. Start saving old toilet paper or paper towel rolls, use old wrapping paper, tissue and ribbon for the outside. You can pick up cracker making kits at local craft stores that will have the cracker element and then add some fair trade chocolate and hand write some jokes or quotes ( there are plenty on the Internet). Then the paper, cardboard rolls and outer wrapping can go in the compost bin.
Christmas is more about family, food and being together than having to worry about giving each other more “stuff” covered in wasted packaging. Give a gift because you care but give a gift that is also careful on the environment. A little bit of planning now will make a difference and create a healthier Christmas that everyone will enjoy. Remember to first reduce your consumption, then reuse what you have already and then recycle.
Love this 12 days to a greener Christmas from the Hawkes Bay Regional Council too.
Tags: Christmas, christmas cards, consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, furoshiki, landfill, mapua trading co, paperless post, plastics, presents, recycling, reduce, reuse, second hand, vintage, waste, wrapping paper
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2009 by Admin
SIFT is able to help a variety of projects get started through a number of different types of funding. Agpac is great example of SIFT helping out with a grant. Agpac needed some funding to develop a wash plant with an aim to recycle baleage wrap from farms.
 Farm feed wrapped in Baleage While supplying baleage wrap (and other polythene products) to the rural sector Agpac wanted to find a way to reuse, recycle or dispose of baleage wrap and plastic silage pit covers sustainably. As producers of the packaging they felt it was their responsibility to ensure that it was disposed of appropriately with minimal harm to the environment. Currently, the wrap is either burnt (polluting the atmosphere), buried or left to blow around the rural property, causing environmental damage. The difficulty in recycling it, however, is its high contamination with manure, water, mud and damage.
 Used baleage wrap container (made from recycled baleage wrap) Agpac developed an easy-to-use bin for farmers to put their old and used baleage wrap into, decreasing the chance of contamination (and then increasing the amount of baleage wrap that can be recycled). This is then collected, shredded, washed then recycled. The old baleage wrap is then turned into the baleage wrap collection bins (as in the photo above). Agpac’s goal is to have every farmer in NZ with a baleage wrap collection bin.
The grant from SIFT was to help with research and development and the trialing of the recycling process. They are now in their fourth year and take around 280 tonnes of plastic wrap from farms. This is a great example of product stewardship in action – Agpac supply crop packaging products and then take back and recycle used packaging for responsible reuse – thus diverting more waste from landfill. We need more of this across all industries.
Agpac also bring in recycled bins from Italy (made from recycled Polypropylene and Polyethylene) to help make recycling and waste sorting easy. Called Urba there are 7L kitchen caddies, 40L stackable towers, breathable compost bins with bio bags and a range of other bins to make recycling (and diverting waste from landfill) easier. SIFT has one of the compost bins in our office and it doesn’t even smell.
Agpac also make Tuffboard recycled plastic sheeting and compost bins made from recycled HDPE plastic.
This morning Chris Hartshorne, Recycling Manager from Agpac joined SIFT CEO Linda Norris on PlainsFM’s GreenBiz segment to talk about the history of the idea to recycle the baleage wrap, how the initiative affects the supply chain for retailers and brand owners, the bins, farms, how the waste is collected, producer responsibility and product stewardship (whether it should be mandatory or voluntary). Here is the podcast.
 Agpac's Chris Hartshorne with their Urba recycling bins at PlainsFM Agpac will also be opening a new compressor tomorrow – another step in making their producer responsibility/product stewardship recycling scheme more streamlined and efficient.
Tags: agpac, baleage wrap, community, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, Green Collar Jobs, plastics, producer responsibility, product stewardship, recycling, recycling bins, reuse, SIFT, urba
Posted in SIFT Projects | No Comments »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 by Admin
 Source: Flickr Simon Cox The practical waste reduction action for this week is to print two to a page and double sided (sounds like a hoedown!)…and only print when you need to. Printing two sheets to a page (which is still readable) instantly halves the amount of printing and then printing double sided will halve it again. If two to a page is too small stick with double sided and if you have a printer that can’t do this look to upgrade to one that can. The next step is to print on 100% recycled paper and reuse any paper printed on one side. At SIFT we are conscious about printing and paper use and only print when we really need to.
The Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry Annual Pulp, Paper and Production statistics state that in the year to March 31 2009 New Zealand consumed 945, 499 tonnes of paper which is 221kg per person.
In Christchurch alone we sent 53,337 tonnes (of paper and card) to Kate Valley Landfill in the year to June 2009.
Here is a lovely way to recycle paper we found while looking through Flickr. Haru’s Paper Celebration!s makes some lovely wreaths which you can check out here.
 Source: Flickr Haru's Paper Celebration!s
Tags: CCC, consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, MAF, paper, recycle, reduce, waste, Waste Management
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 by Admin
 Green is Life from Flickr: Neirolf (very busy...) There is a new generation of employees who want to work for companies and organisations that align to their values: sustainable business practices, conscious strategies, positive environmental impact, reduction in carbon emissions and resource use, community and social responsibility practices, meaningful work, flexible, nimble and open to change, innovative and no greenwash. (Coined Generation M by Umair Haque).
Do these types of organisations/employers exist in Canterbury? Can employees green their employers or will they have to move and where to? Where are the truly good organisations that are going to lead Canterbury and New Zealand into a future where the way we live will be completely different to the past few decades? A paradigm shift needs to occur in order for us to reduce our emissions, reduce our waste and live more sustainably but who are the organisations that can help us create the new future? SIFT is definitely one of them.
We would love to know where and who these employers and organisations are? Email us or leave a comment of the organisations you are proud to work for or proud to know and why. Is your employer green and environmental focussed or someone who thinks they are green but aren’t?
Tags: climate change, consumption, environmental sustainability, Green Collar Jobs, SIFT, sustainable employment, sustainable future
Posted in Business & Sustainability | No Comments »
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 by Admin
 wasteminz Here are Linda’s top 14 highlights (in no particular order) from last week’s WasteMinz conference held here in Christchurch. There were four days of workshops, site visits and networking – a must for anyone involved in the waste industry.
- Lisa Smith – The Thinker – ground breaking thinking
- Tyres – discussed the models and the realities of recycling tyres in New Zealand
- Louisa Palmer – the future of recycling and the bottle bank on her trade stand
- Sulo Talbot & SIFT’s basketball challenge at the Smart environmental recycling stand – prizes galore…business card holders, wine and even a cafe table and chair set up for grabs – well done to both who received a high score on Day 2 with 96 points in 45 seconds! Great conversations and lots of fun. Apparently it even generated a business idea, but shhh mum’s the word!
- FriendlyPak/Agpac – biodegradable products
- Presentation by Mark Inglis – innovation in R&D which is much needed in NZ, “in the last 100 years we have learnt more than in the past 20,000 years – what are we going to learn in the next 10 years?”, communication , connections and being proactive about what you need to do for the future. Mark also talked about how people need to become more socially responsible and businesses need to lead the way as change makers. “We need to be optimists as opposed to optimalists.”
- Christian Noble – debunking the waste to energy myth – experiences from Denmark so we can broaden our knowledge
- Presentation by Martyn Pinckard, Director of Operations from MfE
- E-Waste – Kumar Radharkrishnan, SIMS recycling services, APAC – what’s being recycled and is there a model for Canterbury? Can Canterbury lead the way for e-waste as well?
- Visit to Kate Valley Landfill – surprised the slick operation and cleanliness.
- Product Stewardship – A commercial study – turning nappies into compost
- The formal dinner at the Christchurch Airforce museum – just an awesome location…
- Sulo Talbot’s Worms on Wheels product – great idea
- Trade Commission of Denmark – forever helpful in connecting NZ and Denmark
Photos of the highlights will be up next week.
Tags: community, diverting waste from landfill, e-waste, environmental sustainability, Green Collar Jobs, linda norris, plastics, recycle, SIFT, Waste Management
Posted in Events | 1 Comment »
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