environmental sustainability » Sift Blog
Posts Tagged ‘environmental sustainability’
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 by Admin
 350.org Saturday is the International Day of Climate Action – raising awareness of taking action to tackle climate change to reduce our CO2 emissions back down to a “safe” limit of 350 parts per million. This is being organised and coordinatted across 170 countries by an organisation called 350.org. Set up by environmentalist and eduacator Bill McKibben Saturday will bring many different group activities to highlight climate change and the number 350 – in New Zealand there are currently 110 activities planned. It is actually more than raising awareness about climate change it is (as the website states) a chance for the public to take a stand and make it known that we have to do everything we can to reduce our emissions to 350ppm to slow global warming and reduce the likelihood of the temperature increasing more than 2 degrees celsius over the next 50-100 years. 350ppm is the safe upper limit for the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere.
 Co2 now The current ppm CO2 in our atmosphere (as measured by Earth Systems Research Laboratory (ESRL) / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at Moana Loa Observatory in Hawaii (where CO2 has been measured since the mid 1950’s)) is 384.78 ppm and climbing.
Check out 350 Aotearoa for what is happening in your region and how you can get involved. In Christchurch the activities includes Frocks on Bikes in Victoria Square, planting on the Southshore, artwork on New Brighton Pier, Port Hill Greens will be at Victoria Square asking people to reduce their emissions by 10% by 2010, Canterbury surfers will paddle out on the sea to show their support and many others.
Also CO2now.org is a great website for climate change information and how ESRL and NOAA study CO2 – there are also some interesting and informative videos and you can download a CO2 counter for your website or blog like the one above.
Read here for why 350ppm is such an important number.
And here is the wonderfully animated 350.org video.
And here are a range of great photos of what people have done to raise awareness of 350.
Get involved and take a stand today.
Tags: 10:10, 350 Aotearoa, 350.org, Bill McKibben, climate change, environmental sustainability, ESRL, Frocks on Bikes, NOAA
Posted in Events | No Comments »
Monday, October 19th, 2009 by Admin
Another easy way to reduce your paper waste is to put a “no junk mail” or “no circulars” sign on your letterbox. This will significantly decrease the amount of papers, advertising and unwanted mail into your letterbox (although it won’t stop the bills!). You can probably pick up a second hand metal one at a second hand store or get a sticker from ECan or maybe your local council. Or you could make one yourself. 7% of all waste to landfill nationally is paper and a lot is recycled.*
*Ministry for the Environment, 2008
 Source: lonely radio on Flickr  Source: lonely radio on Flickr  Source: louisa_catlover on Flickr  Source: cactusbones on Flickr
Tags: diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, no junk mail, paper, reduce, waste
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 by Admin
 Source: enniomorry11 Flickr We are now fully into Spring and many people will be getting their vegetable beds and new plants into their gardens. Instead of developing piles of different sized plant pots in your back shed or garage after taking out the plants or seedlings return them to the garden centre you bought them from.
On a recent trip to Southern Woods I noticed that they were now taking back their plastic plant pots for a small discount on your next purchase. This is a great way to reduce your plastic waste and ensure that the pots get reused over and over. And will also lessen the demand for the production of new pots which will reduce the environmental impact of pot manufacturing (energy, resources and waste).
Check with your local garden centre if they have pot take back/recycling scheme (even if they won’t give a discount it is still worth returning them) – just make sure you take back the plant pots that originally came from that garden centre and they are clean and not chipped or broken in anyway.
 Source: willdobson Flickr If you have pots that you can’t take back re-use them in the garden to raise seedlings such as tomatoes, chillies, squash and other plants before planting them in the garden.
With gardening (particularly growing vegetables) becoming more popular there will be a growing number of pots being manufactured and wasted. Garden waste in this form will become more of an issue so it is worth thinking ahead before buying – maybe sow seeds instead for veges.
Reduce then reuse then recycle.
Tags: consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, gardening, plant pots, plastics, recycle, waste
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 by Admin
Yesterday, the Sift team visited Kate Valley Landfill. As part of the Waste Minimisation Conference being held here in Christchurch we were able to tag along and see for ourselves where our waste is going. Makes you want to buy a lot less, consume more consciously and compost everything you can. We have also decided to rename our landfill rubbish bin to Kate Valley Landfill so we remember exactly where that piece of waste will end up.
 Kate Valley looking towards Tiromoan Reserve Kate Valley itself is a beautiful scenic part of Canterbury about an hour north of Christchurch. The landfill itself is surprisingly clean and a very slick operation. It is not the stereotypical landfill with piles of trash, an awful smell and lots of seagulls. In fact you only see the rubbish that has just come out of the trucks for that day – the rest is covered over and there are no seagulls. Even with being so close to the coast because the waste is not left out uncovered there are no seagulls to pick at it. There is a slight smell but nothing to make you gag or hold your nose. We were actually quite impressed with the whole operation.
 Completed landfill Cell 1 on the right, Beech Remnant in the middle and current landfill cell on the left For Christchurch a total of 253,985 tonnes of waste went to landfill (both Christchurch City Council and privately managed landfills) for the 12 months ending 30 June 2007. That’s about 764kg per person per year. The majority of the waste is paper and cardboard (21%) which could have been recycled, kitchen waste 16%, plastic waste 15% (some of this no doubt could have been recycled and if not we need to find other ways to divert it from landfill without it going offshore), Green waste 11% (possibly mostly compostable), wood 10%, textiles and rubber 9% and rubble 7%. The remaining 11% is glass, metal, potentially hazardous substances, sanitary paper and soil.*
The top contenders for being reduced so they don’t go to landfill are paper/cardboard, plastics, organic waste, wood and textiles. If you have any ideas on what more we can do to decrease the amount of this waste going to landfill feel free to let us know.
 The Kate Valley Landfill site looking South-East Here are some facts about Kate Valley landfill that you may not have know:
- Kate Valley landfill is a collaborative regional landfill between Christchurch City Council and Selwyn, Hurunui, Waimakariri and Ashburton District Councils (there are other private landfills and cleanfills in Canterbury). It is owned 50% by Transwaste Canterbury and 50% by all the councils involved. A great example of a successful private-public partnership.
- The site is about 1000 hectares with only 37ha set aside for landfill and 410ha for environmental enhancement. The rest is being farmed.
- There is currently 1.2million tonnes of waste in the landfill (after about 4 years of operation) and the landfill is expected to last 35 years.
- The landfill has many innovative design components including a super high quality base-lining system, the restoration of 410ha of threatened native bush being restored back to native coastal bush (a process that will take a couple of hundred years), two public walkways (Mt Cass and Tiromoana Bush Restoration area) and educational opportunities for the community (how many landfills have bus tours! They are booked 6 months in advance too).
- Leachate from the landfill is pumped through collection drains and stored in tanks with the excess being taken to Bromley Sewage Treatment Plant in Christchurch.
- It is expected that in about 30 years there will be enough gas collected to potentially generate 8 megawatts, enough to power 8000 households.
- All rubbish trucks are tracked with GPS and are told by a centralised dispatcher where the rubbish is for pick up each day. The rubbish trucks never actually go to the landfill site itself. There is a highly organised process of dropping off the full containers and picking up an empty one and leaving. Taking the full containers to the landfill for emptying is done by four tipper trucks. This keeps the process very safe and clean.
- Transwaste Canterbury can landfill a day’s worth of rubbish in just four hours.
- Transwaste Canterbury and CWS (who manage the trucks) carry out school education programmes for the local schools in the area so the children learn about how to be safe around the trucks. The trucks also drop down to 40km p/hour around these local schools (some of which are on 100km p/hour stretches of State Highway 1).
- The CWS trucks do four trips a day with a three hour round trip for each trip and all the trucks have a number of cameras for safety.
- There has been a noticeable reduction in waste mostly because of Christchurch’s new three-bin waste system and the recession (people are consuming less so there is less waste).
- In the middle of the landfill site is a small area of old beech forest. Transwaste Canterbury have been asked to not remove this area until a certain date so the DNA from the seeds of the beech trees can be taken and used for new seedlings in the restoration area further down the valley.
- Transwaste Canterbury plant 40,000 trees a year and have created a wetlands area.
 Truck Unloading Source: Hurunui District Council If you want to see what happens to your organic and recyclable waste there are open days this Sunday from 10am to 3pm at the Waste Water Treatment Plant in Bromley, the Organics Plant, also in Bromley and the Recycling Plant in Parkhouse Road in Sockburn. For more information on entrance fees and parking etc click the links or visit the City Council’s website.
*Statistics from the Solid Waste and Recycling Statistics for Christchurch April 2008.
National waste information can be found here from the MfE.
For more information about your rubbish recovery and Kate Valley Landfill talk to your local District or City Council.
Tags: diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, recycling, reduce, reuse, SIFT, waste, Waste Management
Posted in News on Sustainability, Waste Management | No Comments »
Monday, October 12th, 2009 by Admin
Here is a guest blog post from MiniMonos – all about our favourite environmentalist Melissa Clark-Reynolds and her new project MiniMonos.
An Inconvenient Truth for Canterbury kids.
 Melissa Clark-Reynolds Watching Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in a Christchurch movie theatre changed the course of Melissa Clark-Reynolds’ life and led to the creation of MiniMonos, a virtual world for good green kids.
Prior to this, Melissa already had a string of entrepreneurial successes. She established Fusion, a health and safety and ACC consultancy which became New Zealand’s largest private accident compensation insurer. Melissa was the General Manager of Fusion and sold her interest in the Alliance to Southern Cross Healthcare. She had also successfully turned around and scaled previously struggling technology companies.
Deeply moved while watching An Inconvenient Truth, Melissa decided to contact ex-US Vice President Al Gore to offer her help. Having absolutely no idea how she was going to get his attention, she contacted everyone she knew, trusting that somehow six degrees of separation would prevail. After a huge amount of persistence, she remembered that her friend’s husband worked for Mr Gore. Incredibly, when she reached out for an introduction to husband, she found out that her friend was actually Executive Director of The Climate Project, a network of 2,500 climate awareness ambassadors, all personally trained by Mr Gore. In 2007, Melissa became one of only two New Zealanders to be trained to present The Inconvenient Truth, and paved the way for more Kiwi presenters to be trained earlier this year.
 Melissa Clark-Reynolds and Al Gore To date, Melissa’s favourite presentations have been in Geraldine and Lawrence – both organised by the rural communities there. One Geraldine farmer, David Musgrave, approached Melissa after her presentation and was inspired to become a Climate Project Ambassador himself, being selected and trained by Al Gore in Melbourne in July this year.
Melissa’s environmental activism is reflected in her virtual world, MiniMonos (”Little Monkeys” in Spanish). Says Melissa: “We wanted to create a world so that children could have a place of their own, a place that allows them to explore and grow without constant pressure to buy stuff. We also wanted them to have a place that embodies core values like sustainability and generosity, without turning those values into a boring lecture.”
Melissa foresees that global warming will create big issues for Canterbury – especially for its water supply. NIWA predicts that the effects on Canterbury will cause our region to become hotter and drier, which has implications for our dairy industry here. “We have to get really serious about energy use. What if the snow and rainfall doesn’t keep coming to Central and Eastern sides of South Island and mostly falls on the West Coast? This will have a huge impact on energy generation from the hydro lakes. Long term predictions for continued snowfall at Mt Hutt don’t look so good.”
 Melissa Clark Reynolds & Daughter Grace Melissa praises Christchurch initiatives like investigating liquid fuels production and their by-products from the Bromley sewage ponds. “I think ECan (Environment Canterbury) is one of the best Regional Councils in the country, with one of the toughest jobs. They invited me, last month, to talk about implications for Canterbury of climate change – way cool! – the first Regional Council in the country to do so!”
Christchurch City has a Climate Change Change Coordinator, and a real commitment to public transport. Says Melissa: “People need to help their elected officials (i.e. at CCC and ECan) to keep climate change front of mind. If we don’t act sustainably, all the cool stuff we take for granted will be damaged beyond belief. I love the Southern Alps, the lakes and rivers, swimming at Corsair Bay, skiing at Mt Hutt, paddling at Lake Hood. Do we want them there for future generations or do we want to tell our children how Canterbury use to be?”
We’d love you to become part of the MiniMonos community and exlpore MiniMonos Island as it’s being developed – it’s free. Each person who gives MiniMonos feedback in October will give back to a child in need.
Tags: Al Gore, algae biofuel, An Inconvenient Truth, CCC, climate change, consumption, ECan, environmental sustainability, Melissa Clark-Reynolds, sustainable, The Climate Project
Posted in Green Collar Jobs Q&A, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 by Admin
In 2006 3.156 million tonnes of waste went to New Zealand landfills – that’s around 756kg per person per year. 28% of that waste is organic which could be composted at home*. The easiest and most impactful way to decrease the amount of waste that goes to landfill is to reduce our consumption. Here is a great quote from the book Living the Good Life by Linda Cockburn (2006) (a bit graphic but you get the point):
“Imaging trying to stem the flow of blood from someone with seven severed arteries using a single bandaid. That’s pretty much what our recycling efforts could be considered as. Often people feel they are doing their bit by recycling plastic bags, glass jars and aluminium cans. There is a false sense of ‘doing your bit’ towards the environment, when it will never staunch the flow, only marginally slow it.”
There are many ways to take action to reduce your use, some we have already talked about. We would love to know what you are doing to reduce waste to landfill.
*Statistics from the Ministry for Environment and Statistics NZ.
Tags: aluminium, consumption, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, glass, Living the Good Life, plastic, recycling, reduce, tonnes, waste, Waste Management
Posted in Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 by Admin
Finally, after a few technical difficulties and a bit of a YouTube learning curve we have been able to load our little video interview of the Sift Styrofoam Meat and Vegetable Tray Recycling Competition winner Paul Ryan. Have a look and let us know what you think. Feel free to rate it too!
Sift and Paul Ryan on YouTube
Tags: climate change, community, diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, Green Collar Jobs, linda norris, meat trays, SIFT, styrofoam, waste
Posted in SIFT Projects, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 by Admin
 Saatch and Saatchi S Do One Thing Sift is all about connecting the dots. Connecting together people, processes, organisations (public and private), the community and adding in some funding to improve our environment. Helping one entrepreneur, organisation or start up to produce a new and innovative way to reduce waste by giving them some funding will reap big benefits in the future. Not only will it improve our environment by decreasing the amount of waste that goes to landfill but it could bring job creation and show sustainability leadership from Canterbury. It might also inspire others to apply for funding for their projects which in turn will also have benefits. Our sometimes small actions will add up to create lasting changes. Tackling climate change and living more sustainably is about lots of actions by many people. Action, collaboration and community.
Speaking of DOTs recently, Saatchi and Saatchi S’s (Saatchi and Saatchi’s sustainability arm) Kevin Roberts blogged about implementing “nano-practices” at their work to reduce carbon emissions. They have called it DOT – Do one thing. Pick one thing to change your life and do it on a regular basis. One good way to change your habits to live a more sustainable life is to start with one habit to change and then build on that with other small changes so in a year you are living a much lower impact life. If you are new to tackling climate change and living more sustainable it can be a bit overwhelming (lots of information out there) and changing habits is not always easy. So, just pick one thing you can do today and everyday to ensure the change is manageable and lasting. You can then work up to the big projects like installing solar water heating.
Some great resources for sustainable living/climate change actions are Sustainablity.govt.nz, Good Magazine, Sustainable Living courses and the original Eco Kiwi book written by Jane and Simon Cotter. Talk to your family, friends and neighbours about what they are doing to reduce their impact as well.
Our DOTs for this month are:
Linda – Investigating more ways to be more self-sufficient especially with energy.
Olivia – sow more seeds so I can truly eat local and organic from my own vege garden.
Let us know what new actions you will be tackling this month to live more sustainably.
Tags: climate change action, community, connection, diverting waste from landfill, Eco Kiwi, environmental sustainability, Good Magazine, habits, Saatch and Saatchi, sustainability, sustainable living, sustainable projects, waste
Posted in SIFT, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Monday, September 28th, 2009 by Admin
 Paul Ryan with fellow competition winner Jo Wynne We will interview people who work directly in an environmental field or in their role help others to achieve environmental goals (like Sift) or are members of the public who live sustainably or are interested in living more sustainably for posts on Green Collar Jobs.
Paul Ryan was the winner of the most sustainable/commercial category from our recent Styrofoam Meat & Vege Tray Recycling Competition. We picked him for the first Q & A. Once technical issues have been sorted we will also post a video version onto our You Tube channel (more details to come).
1. How do you live sustainably in your life? Since the mid 1960’s we have recycled our waste. It helps to have a large section so you can compost – we didn’t have bins like we do today. It is just part of our lives to live more consciously. It is great to have the new bin system from the Selwyn District Council – this is an opportunity to recycle more and be more aware of our waste. When I need to remove a lot of waste I go to Parkhouse [Eco Depot] in Christchurch as I feel they are more organised than the local refuse centre and can help me better with what I do when I get there…they are just more organised. We are also living in a newer house that we built which has extra insulation so we can be more energy efficient.
2.What do you think is the biggest environmental issue we need to deal with in Christchurch/New Zealand? Better, more organised local refuse station would help people to recycle and remove their waste. More information is needed for the community. The Selwyn District Council and Christchurch City Council need to look at what goes into their landfills and start looking at how to better reuse those resources that end up in landfill – they need to look at low cost technology options from around the world, which could become commercially viable. Polystyrene trays is a good example of a waste that could be better recovered without going to landfill just by investigating other options for its recovery like my idea to mould it into insulation.
3.What makes you smile? Other people who are happy.
4. What is your biggest pet peeve? Our roads. Our roading infastructure is not good enough. We need better public transport (like using Rolleston and Rangiora as hubs for shuttles or trains) and need to be faster at investigating the needs of the community and developing solutions to their problems. If there is better transport, there will be more people finding it easier to get around, which will lead to better services and a better community. Park and ride would be a great option for Rolleston and Rangiora.
5. What is your favourite colour and why? Blue-grey. Because it is a great foundation colour and it can interact well with all the other colours.
6. Do you have a favourite place in the world and why? In my backyard – most of New Zealand would be my answer. It is so special and unique. We need to enjoy it and cherish it not spoil it.
7. What’s your connection to Sift? I am member of the public interested and sustainability and won the Sift Styrofoam Meat & Vege tray recycling competition along with Jo Wynne. I saw the advert in the paper and know that Styrofoam is a problem that needs a solution.
8. Do you remember your favourite teacher and why? I had a music teacher who taught me brass instruments. He could see I had the capabilities to produce good music and spent time with me encouraging and helping me to learn. I was in the NZ Army Band and could play brass instruments like the trumpet and trombone.
9. What do you want to leave behind? Sustainability – sound families and sound living opportunities.
10. What do you think the future will bring? The magic as long as you can control it.
11. Who is someone you really admire and why? Mr Gorbachev. He had the burden of several Soviet states on his shoulders, still able to talk to the West and make concessions. He was a good statesmen. Ghandi was also a phenomenal leader. At the moment there is no real clear leader and there are many great leaders in today’s world who are not recognised.
12. What is happening outside your window right now? It is raining…lovely spring rain! All the colours are coming back which is great.
13. What is your favourite breakfast? My homemade muesli and All Bran.
14. What is the best piece of advice you can give us? Need to promote yourselves more. The more people you can reach and help the better the communication on environmental issues within the community will become. It takes time and energy but engage with the community.
Tags: diverting waste from landfill, environmental sustainability, Green Collar Jobs, SIFT, styrofoam, waste
Posted in SIFT | No Comments »
|
|
   find out more
|
