Plasback Scheme Mgr Chris Hartshorne & Agpac GM Chris Dawson

Earlier in the week Plasback’s Chris Hartshorne (of the Agpac/Plasback project that SIFT funded – more here and here for the blog post on the TV3 story) announced that they have exported 30 tonnes of plastic resin to Australia and Korea. This plastic resin is made up of the on-farm waste plastics that they have collected, such as used baleage wrap.

Chris Hartshorne stated:

“Our on-farm collection service and the tonnage of waste plastic we collected grew considerably last year and we expect that trend to continue in 2011. More farmers and contractors have joined Plasback, and those who use the recycling scheme  are learning how to maximise the efficiency of the collection service and minimise their costs. Plasback is a user pays scheme. There are no expensive levies placed on manufacturers or importers as we place greater emphasis on adding value to the waste stream as this in turn supports the collections from farms”.

“The government of NZ emphasises that product stewardship is the way of the future. The means manufacturers and consumers take responsibility for the full life of the products they use. The Plasback scheme plays an important role in helping the rural sector look after the environment that they and we all depend upon.”

Congratulations to Chris and the Plasback team – this is a great win for the environment and great leap forward for Product Stewardship in New Zealand.

14012011 Agpac Media Release Plasback resin sale

Source: Flickr speckled_beckle's photostream

Yesterday, most of the 164 applications for funding for waste project(s) from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund would have received a letter telling them their application has been turned down. Congratulations to the 29 who did make it through to the next stage – we are interested to see what these projects are. If this was you and your project is based in Canterbury have you thought about approaching the Sustainable Initiatives Fund for assistance?

The purpose of the Waste Minimisation Fund is not too dissimilar to the objectives of the Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust. The WMF was developed to boost New Zealand’s performance in waste minimisation through educational, promotional, technological or infrastructure projects. The objectives of the Sustainable Initiatitives Fund Trust are about reducing or avoiding waste that goes specifically to Canterbury’s landfills through new technology/process or recovering new waste streams or by developing new products or technologies out of recovered materials. Other sub-objectives include creating useful sustainable educational applications from the products or technologies that are developed and/or creating sustainable energy products out of waste and/or creating sustainable job opportunties and contributing positively to Canterbury’s economy. The Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust is apart of a new generation of social lenders with the primary motivation of reducing negative environmental impacts – decreasing waste to landfill.

We have a number of projects on the go at the moment that are a mix of grants, loans and equity investments and cover a range of waste streams and issues. You can check out more of our past projects here.

We had a board meeting yesterday and again the board reiterated that projects need to show their reduction in environmental impact first and foremost. We are super keen to see the waste reduction numbers for the waste stream your project deals with.

If you have an idea that requires financial assistance we may be able to help. Call myself (Olivia Day, General Manager) to discuss if you are eligible and if we can help. Our number is 03 3655655.

Light at the end of the tunnel Hidcote Manor Garden

Yesterday the Ministry for the Environment announced that it was into the first stage of looking at all the eligible applications to its Waste Minimisation Fund. All 164 of them. That means some  might have missed out as they were not eligible.

If that is you or someone you know you might be eligible for financial assitance from us, the Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust. Check how to apply here.

With 164 applications requesting $55 million from a total of only $6 million there will be many who do not receive funding for what are possibly worthy projects. If you have a project that is focussed on Canterbury feel free to call or email us to discuss whether or not your project might be eligible for funding from us.

Photo source: AntonyChammond Flickr

Source: Flickr laffy4k's photostream

The Christchurch Community House Te Whakaruruhau ki Otautahi is holding its annual funding expo next Wednesday the 17th from 10am to 3pm at the Christchurch Community House offices 141 Hereford Street, Christchurch. The Sustainable Initiatives Fund will be there as well as many others taking part in the different workshops that include “Making the most of the Charities Register” from the Charities Commission, “Funding for Arts Development” from Creative NZ, “Finding Funders using Fundview” from the Funding Information Service and “Strategic Fundraising” from UNITEC. There are other workshops as well as an expo area with stands from the different funders from Canterbury including SIFT.

There are also two full days of workshops from Exult. On the 18th is the Sustainable Funding Workshop and on the 19th is the Secret to Sponsorship workshop.

There may still be workshop spaces available for both the Exult and Christchurch Community House Workshops or if you would like more information on the funding expo call 03 365 3139.

Christchurch Community House is a valuable central resource area for welfare, social service organisations and communtiy groups in Canterbury. And Exult is a Tauranga based organisation that supports other community groups with their fundraising, marketing and sponsorship tactics.

Source: Flickr Ed's Photostream 11 Butterfly

The Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust is a catalyst for change. We know (roughly) how much waste is generated, how much goes to landfill, what the negative environmental impacts are of that waste (leachate, toxins, global warming from methane emissions etc) and the amount of work and cultural behaviour change that is required to reduce how much waste is generated and sometimes that can be rather overwhelming and depressing. But, everyday we are reminded of those individuals, businesses and community groups who are doing good work and we are uplifted everyday by those we are helping to make the numbers better and improve the health of our environment – one step at a time, one day at a time.

Sometimes it can take a few years from the start of the relationship to the final outcome of the project. And that final outcome may just be the first step in many steps to creating a sustainable and commercially viable process that can help to significantly reduce the amount of waste that goes to Canterbury’s landfills.

It is about having a long term goal for our future – a sustainable Canterbury future where any waste generated is reused, recovered or recycled on shore first and where landfill and sending it offshore is the last resort (for all waste streams). But it will take time, patience, innovative ideas, advancement in technology, sound investment, collaboration (public and private partnerships), commitment, affecting cultural behaviour change, walking the talk, leading and being the catalyst for change. That is what SIFT is about – being a positive force for good as a social lender.

We have profiled a few businesses that are leading in waste management on our blog in the past and you can see some of the good and impactful work that we have done  here. We have a number of super exciting projects on the go at the moment that will make a difference to Canterbury’s waste and will let you all know in due course about what they are and what good they will do.

If you are looking for funding for a project that will reduce the amount of waste going to Canterbury’s landfill or have a new idea that we could help with you can apply here.

You can check out our Flickr photos here too.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, the government announced that the city and district councils around the country (73 in all) will receive the first payment from the Waste Minimisation Fund of $3 million dollars. The Waste Minimisation Fund is made up of the levies taken from landfills from around the country.

“The Waste Minimisation Act discourages waste disposal by imposing a levy of $10 per tonne of waste on disposal facilities such as landfills. Half of the money collected is allocated to councils on a population basis to spend on minimising waste in their area and the remaining levy money, minus administration costs, is made available for waste projects and education through the Waste Minimisation Fund.” said Environment Minister Hon. Dr. Nick Smith.

Here is how much each council will get in Canterbury:

• Christchurch City Council $263,175
• Timaru District Council $32,378
• Waimakariri District Council $32,353
• Selwyn District Council $25,428
• Ashburton District Council $20,674
• Hurunui District Council $7,913
• Kaikoura District Council $2,735

That’s a total of $384,656. Even though this is an excellent use of the levy from landfills the question is – will this money be enough to fund priority waste minimisation projects across Canterbury councils? Will it be enough to make a real and lasting difference to our waste?

More information here and here.

The Kate Valley Landfill site looking South-East

Happy New Year! Welcome to a new decade and a fresh start to sustainable living and sustainable business practices.  The SIFT team is back on board ready to continue to help our current projects meet their goals and ready to take any new applications from people who have ideas on how to reduce waste to landfill and need some funding to make it happen. Now, more than ever, we all need to reduce our waste and become more efficient users of the resources we do have.

Let us know if you made any environmentally positive or waste related New Year resolutions; we would love to know how you are going with them.

Peter Schuyff's recarved baseball bats via Junk Culture

Christchurch is definitely becoming the hub of recycling for New Zealand especially for Plastics. Last month, the new $5 million Mastagard plant opened which will enable Canterbury to recycle more types of plastics and yesterday there were two new plant openings. The Agpac plant opened a new baler which will help to increase the amount of baleage plastic they can recycle and then an hour later Comspec in Hornby opened a new plastic milk bottle recycling plant.

The Comspec plant is a state-of-the-art plastic milk bottle wash and recycling facility. They are able to process 100,000 plastic milk bottles per day. Comspec is another SIFT funded project as well – we gave an initial grant to assess the feasibility and commercial viability of the plant and then some more $ in the form of a loan to buy the plant needed.

There are three key positive aspects to the Comspec plant:

1. It means that the South Island’s plastic milk bottles will no longer be shipped offshore. They would normally go to Asia to be recycled but Comspec can now do it.

2. The process is also chemical free and the water used for washing is recycled in a closed loop system.

3. Turning the old plastic milk bottles into recycled plastic resin provides a ready feed stock of plastic resin for manufacturing within New Zealand. This means decreasing our dependancy on buying in plastic resin from overseas. This is a valuable resource.

It is estimated that they will process 2.5 million plastic milk bottles a year. They will be shredded, washed, granulated, rinsed and dried to make recycled plastic resin that can be turned into other plastic items such as drainage pipes, plastic sheeting, wheelie bins and industrial packaging.

Comspec have stated that this project will save an average of 1 tonne of CO2 for every tonne of plastic that is recycled. That’s great.

Even Fonterra is supportive of the new plant. Their Eco-Efficiency Manager, Spring Humphreys, was quoted in the press release as saying  “This wash plant is an excellent example of innovation in New Zealand’s plastics recycling industry which ticks all of the boxes for improving environment, social and economic performance.”

At SIFT we are really pleased to be apart of such positive impactful projects and can’t wait to see more of them come on line. This is a successful SIF T project that diverts our waste from going to landfill and from going off shore for someone else to deal with.

Old plastic milk bottles on the move

More old milk bottles on the move

The Comspec Plant

Another part of the Comspec plant

Chipped old plastic milk bottles

From milk to consume, to empty milk bottles, to recycled plastic resin granules to new plastic piping.