Sustainable Spoon Mug Wall via Re-Nest

It is a lovely 26 degrees (C) in the garden city today and no doubt the rest of Canterbury will be enjoying the lovely weather as well. Here are a few tid bits from home and abroad to tide you over till Monday.

• Last Friday Environment Minister Nick Smith stated that the government is in discussion with the Australian government for a joint processing plant to extract the lead from old televisions. Hon. Dr Nick Smith stated that they expect “a surge of about 500,000 older TV’s containing about 1000 tonnes of lead”. More here at the NZ Herald and originally via PattersonEnvironmental.
• A summary of the Signs of Change conference SIFT attended on Monday and Tuesday from the Hot Topic team.
• A new laptop has been designed so that all of the individual parts can easily be pulled apart and recycled or disposed of appropriately. More from GOOD USA here.
• Doing good – the businesses that won this year’s Sustainable Business Network awards via Good New Zealand. Top prize went to Resene who are doing the right thing and being innovative everyday.
• The spoon wall – a place to put reusable mags in a school via Re-Nest – genius. A small but very practical and impactful sustainable living solution.
• The House of Contamination made entirely of Waste via Inhabitat.
• DIY Snack Bags made from old magazines via Re-Nest.
• Announcement from the Beehive – the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. One regulator to rule them all.
• Trashing the planet ultimately trashes people - Beth from Fake Plastic Fish looks into how waste (specifically plastic ) is also a Social Justice Issue.
• Love this – wood planks made from newspaper – can you imagine what a whole “weatherboard” house would look like covered in these planks?!

Have a great waste free weekend (start making Christmas presents from things around the home, second hand goods or baking).

Baled Alumnium Cans

Some call it lazy blogging we call it extending knowledge – sharing the cool, interesting, inspiring, good things that we come across each week that are related to sustainability, environmentally positive living, waste and anything else we think you might like.

Here are this week’s Friday Favourites:

• tips on keeping glass jars from Down to Earth
• Celsias summarises Environment Minister Nick Smith’s climate challenges speech at the Australia New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference – here.
• Know your symbols to buy consciously – from Greenpeace.
• CO2 Now’s latest monthly newsletter – the number keeps going up – it needs to start coming down!
• This is a great mockumentary on the life of the plastic bag.
• Great case study on the savings made by New Zealand Post by working with Target Sustainability (originally via WasteMinz).
• Have you bought your compostable toothbrush yet? If not, check out these from rubbishfree.co.nz.
• Great graphic on the amount of renewable energy other countries use (NZ is not there but it is about 70%) from Good (USA).
• Love this behaviour change campaign (from Toyota) for more fuel efficient driving – drive with a glass of water on your dashboard. Might try it this weekend!

Have a great waste free weekend – see you next week.

Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme - Photo copyright Agpac

Congratulations to the team at Plasback for achieving government accreditation of their Voluntary Product Stewardship scheme. They received their accreditation for on farm collecton and then recycling of agricultural plastics along with the Glass Packaging Forum who are focussed on reducing glass that goes to landfill. Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme is the first for the agricultural sector. SIFT granted Agpac (who administer the scheme) funds for a Canterbury focussed education campaign for farmers on the collection scheme. Along with the development of an easy to understand brochure for farmers there was also radio, tv and press advertising. Through the Plasback scheme Agpac are looking to collect 200 tonnes of agricultural plastics by the end of this winter from Canterbury farms.

When the plastics have been collected they are sent to Mastagard for recycling and then reused as recycled plastic feedstock for new products.

The Hon. Dr. Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment said in the press release ” I would encourage other industries to recognise the economic and environmental benefits of product stewardship and get accredited” – we agree.

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