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Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 by Admin
Last week I posted about reducing waste to landfill through better work waste management systems and asked our readers to send in their new/innovative/creative waste management systems in their offices. My sister-in law happened across the blog post (cos’ she follows us on Twitter here too) and sent in the above photos and the following comment:
“At my workplace we have recently implemented a strategy which Crown Research Institutes have been doing for a while. In your office you get a large cardboard tray for recycling and a tiny wee box for rubbish. Then you have to empty these yourselves at one of the depots. Unfortunately we don’t currently have a strategy for organics, so the depots only have landfill, glass/plastic, and paper/cardboard. The cleaners no longer empty bins in our offices and only empty these larger communal bins.”
Thanks Nicola. This is a great example of in-office waste managment.
Tags: cardboard, diverting waste from landfill, glass, landfill, office, organics, paper, photos, plastic, recycling, rubbish, Waste Management
Posted in Business & Sustainability, Pratical Action, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2010 by Admin
 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Source: Flickr DigitalGlobe-Imager Another week of waste minimisation as flown by. On the way we came across some interesting info on waste and sustainability issues that you also might be interested in. Here’s our weekly round up:
- Recycled Printer cartridges made into….a bike path?! It happened in Australia. Read more here.
- Recyclable lamps (egg cartons, CFLs, cloth electrical cord) from American designer Victor Vetterlein over on Re-Nest.
- In light of the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill many are talking about how to reduce your personal oil use. Good article here especially with the list of where petroleum is used – lots of everyday items.
- You can then marry that info with Beth from Fake Plastic Fish’s Plastic Free Living Guide. She’s doing it everyday.
- Speaking of oil based products – recycling plastic bags into blocks. – but are they safe and then where do they go?
- The children of today are the solutions providers of the future – but The Recyclists are already doing it. Awesome. More from their blogspot here.
- Reduction in waste, reduction in packaging, increased energy efficiency, social responsibility, environmental sustainability and setting goals and achieving them – who is this? Marks and Spencer.
- New UK government encouraging recycling and asking manufacturers to reduce packaging – more here.
Have a great low waste weekend.
Tags: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, landfill, paper, petroleum, plastic bags, recycling, The Recyclists, UK, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Monday, June 14th, 2010 by Admin
First thing last Tuesday morning I arrived at the CCC2 Materials Recovery Facility in Parkhouse Road. The sky was super dark and it was really cold (arrived in a hail storm) but the tour of the massive recyclables sorting machine was still very informative (the MRF machine is housed in a 4000 square metre building). The photos are not the best due to the bad light but it gives you an idea. It was put in place about 15 months ago and can process all of Christchurch, Selwyn and Waimak’s recyclables. Each stage of the machine does a different process and there is still some hand sorting in some areas (like pulling out clothes, floppy plastic and in one case a toy plastic gun!). Clothes are the biggest contaminant of recyclable bins – we as yet have no facility to recycle textiles and fabrics.
A basic run down is that all of the trucks come in to the park and dump the recyclables that have come from the yellow bins into a big pile at one end. This is then scooped up and placed on a movable floor. At different points there are different types of screens and separators so that different types of waste drop down onto another conveyer to go into their respecitive piles and there are even magnets to pull out the metals. Small items like bits of glass also drop down into their own conveyer belt and there is a large glass pile at the end of the process. This glass is used for such things as grit blasting and filtration systems. Nearly at the end of the process there is an optical sorter that can determine the different types of plastic (HDPE, PET etc) through the use of infared scanning and group them so they are separated (making it easier to on-sell) and then right at the end is the baler to bale up all of the different types of wastes (for local and international recyclers).
CCC have done a great video of the whole process which shows you much better than the photos below. You can watch a video of the process here.
Here are the photos from the site visit:
 Pile of Rubbish for Recovery  Pile of rubbish behind an 7ft metal wall  Rubbish moving up the conveyer belt (there were about 4 of these inclines)  Rubbish moving through the recovery sorting process  The separate glass conveyer  Looking back from the baler end of the process  A final conveyer belt  The pile of glass outside
Tags: CCC2, clothing, glass, landfill, materials recovery facility, paper, plastic, recycling
Posted in Waste Management | No Comments »
Friday, June 4th, 2010 by Admin
 Great photo from Artist Steven Emmanuel's Everything & Nothing It is a glorious sunny winter’s day today. Full frost this morning and clear blue skies so that you can see the mountains with all the snow! Off to visit Becon this afternoon but thought I would quickly post the links of favourites we have found this week:
Have a great long weekend.
Tags: Friday favourites, paper, plastic, recycling, urban pantry, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 by Admin
On Monday afternoon I attended the opening of Mastagard and Southern Demolition’s new Eco-Recycling Plant. Centrally located just down from AMI Stadium on Wilsons Road the new transfer recycling facility is a joint venture between Mastagard and Southern Demolition. It will take paper, cardboard, magazines, plastic film, plastic bottles, timber, steel, Gib board, concrete and green waste “leaving the bear minimum going to landfill”. Mastagard sees this new transfer facility as a solution to increasing recycling and reuse of waste products. The eco-recycling transfer station is open to businesses, waste operators and the community.
It was a rather chilly afternoon for the opening but the highlight was the Hon. Rodney Hide (National MP) arriving in a Canterbury Waste Services truck! He said that he is “proud and pleased to declare the new transfer station open” and “it is good to see businesses making money while doing good”.
Mastagard’s General Manager Sebastian Stapleton sees the need for “responsible and progressive leadership within our industry”. We agree that the waste industry does need start taking the lead (and to work collaboratively) on providing solutions for reducing our impact on the environment – this new eco-recycling transfer facility is a good example of this. Ofcourse as we have said before the best way to reduce waste is to reduce consumption.
Here are a few key quotes from Mastagard General Manager Sebastian Stapleton:
- The goal is to be a professional, dependable, highly efficient environmental solutions provider.
- It is incredibly important that we are able to create a closed loop recycling process with accountability and integrity.
- It’s no longer acceptable for a person, business or waste collection company to put material in the right coloured bins and simply assume that someone has recovered it and processed it in accordance with environmental best practice.
Mastagard have recovered materials processing sites across the city (they also collect all of the recyclables from Westland). Their Wigram site processes construction and demolition materials such as Gib board which is turned into powder for use in fertiliser and concrete which is separated into grades for re-use in roading and construction. Their Bromley site processes cardboard and organics as well as plastics such as the Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme collection of baleage wrap. The plastics recycling facility was opened last year and you can see photos from that launch here. Southern Demolition is the South Island’s largest demolition and demolition waste recoverer.
Congratulations to Mastagard and Southern Demolition for taking Canterbury a step closer towards a sustainable future. Their work in waste recovery along with all the other industry players will help us to reduce our waste and the impact that has on our environment.
You can view photos of my site visit to Mastagard’s Bromley processing station here.
Photos below from the launch are from my phone so not too good. Good photos to come.
 Hon. Rodney Hide arriving  Emcee Jim Hopkins and Mastagard GM Sebastian Stapleton  Hon. Rodney Hide and Emcee Jim Hopkins  Baled Gloss Paper from Mastagard  HDPE Plastic Milk Bottles from Mastagard  HDPE Recycled Plastic Pellets from Mastagard  Plastic Waste film from Mastagard
Tags: cardboard, landfill, Mastagard, paper, plastics, recycling, Rodney Hide, Southern Demolition, waste
Posted in Events, News on Sustainability, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Friday, May 21st, 2010 by Admin
 Christchurch City Council Recycling Truck (Source: CCC) Lots of great and intersting waste and sustainability tid bits have been discovered this week:
- The glowing lamp made out of coffee cups from Re-Nest.
- Something we want to try – making our own paper.
- In the US it is prom (or formal) time and some high school girls are looking for green prom dresses – great idea.
- Bicycling as it should be – wouldn’t this be great for Christchurch – rush hour traffic on bikes from the Netherlands – could watch it for hours!
- Another Re-Nest find – covering chairs with old jersies.
- Thinking of switching from disposable razors for shaving to a snazzy metal one that will last years? If seeing who else does will help Satorialist Scott Schuman does.
- Another look at what we consume – Kate Bingaman Burt drew what she bought everyday for 3 years.
- And more locally there has been some recent media attention on the Christchurch City Council requesting all residents ensure their bin lids are completely down otherwise they will not be emptied. You can listen to Radio New Zealand National’s Jim Mora to talk Mayor Bob Parker here (choose the Panel segment #2 and it is about three-quarters through) or read it in the Christchurch Press here.
Have a lovely Autumnal weekend.
Tags: bicycles, christchurch, consumption, green prom, landfill, paper, razors, Re-nest, Satorialist, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Monday, May 17th, 2010 by Admin
 Source: Flickr melpaton's photostream Definitely, one of our favourite things. Have you ever considered the waste you might give someone when you send them a parcel. When posting a gift or item consider using packaging that has less impact on Earth’s ecosystems:
- Use plain brown paper (recycled if possible or save brown paper that flowers come wrapped in) so it can be composted (or recycled).
- Use minimal cellotape & labelling (at least so that it can be picked off and be the only thing that goes to landfill)
- Use cotton string so it breaks down (not plastic string)
- Instead of bubble wrap and polystyrene pellets consider trying shredded paper or shredded cardboard and wrap fragile items in newspaper (and then put in a cardboard box).
- And if you need to use a courier ask them if they have a green option. Try Courier Post’ s Eco Range or NZ Couriers GreenPac Range (both made from recycled paper and cardboard).
- Keep a stock of cardboard boxes in a range of sizes on hand for more fragile items.
- Don’t forget to look out for recycled content greeting cards as well.
- Get creative with other types of paper too like old patterns, sheets of music, old wrapping paper even newspaper.
Tags: bubble wrap, Courier Post, NZ Couriers, packaging, paper, polystyrene, recycling, string
Posted in Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 by Admin
A couple of weeks ago I visited Angus Winstone from Mastagard to get a first hand view of their site and what they do. Mastagard collect waste from around Christchurch but also have nationwide recycling contracts for paper and plastic where the items are transported to Christchurch for processing. Mastagard work with one of our grantees Agpac to collect the plastic baleage wrap and other agricultural plastics from their Plasback Voluntary Product Stewardship Scheme. Mastagard are conscious of ensuring that solutions found for on shore recycling of our waste rather than having it shipped to China for processing.
Here are some photos from the visit:
 Baled paper for processing  Stacks of baled paper  Baler machine producing a bale of paper  Paper pile at the beginning of the process  Baled plastic bottles  Baleage wrap ready for processing **All images Copyright the Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust.
Tags: baleage wrap, farms, Mastagard, paper, plastic, recycling
Posted in Waste Management | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010 by Admin
 Baled Paper - Copyright - SIFT What a whirlwind week! We were at the WasteMinz conference earlier in the week and then spent yesterday in catch up mode. So, for today we have few cool things we have found that might be of interest and then next week there will be a bit of a run down on the conference and what we learned.
The most important thing learnt during the two days (it was a mix of Behaviour Change workshops and workshops on waste related issues) is that we need to act sustainably everyday – small actions will add up to make a big impact.
Here are the Friday Favourites:
- The toilet paper issue – how far will you go to reduce your paper waste – all the way to cloths?
- How about eating paper with no calories? As long as it is recycled!
- The biodegradable pen – love it!
- A new guide to buying sustainable paper for your office here launched recently by the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Government.
- A better recycling campaign was also launched this week by the Community Recycling Network (Sue Coutts presented a very informative presentation at the WasteMinz workshop about the launch and why we need to implement more effective and efficient recycling systems with less contamination and to increase onshore recycling). You read see more of what they do here.
- And finally, Envirocomp who compost nappies are still on a roll composting 15,000 nappies a day and looking to expand - more here.
Tags: behaviour change, Friday favourites, paper, recycling, Waste Management, WasteMinz
Posted in Friday favourites, Waste Management | No Comments »
Thursday, March 4th, 2010 by Admin
Here are today’s Friday Favourites – have a great weekend.
And don’t forget if you have old whiteware tomorrow is the national Fisher and Paykel whiteware recycling day.The first 50 people through the gates will receive a $150 voucher towards some new (more energy efficient no doubt) whiteware. Below are the details for Christchurch:
 Fisher & Paykel Whiteware Recycling Day Christchurch details
Tags: clothing, consumption, Fisher & Paykel, Friday favourites, green design, landfill, M&S, Nike, paper, plastic, Re-nest, recycling, waste, whiteware, World Cup
Posted in Friday favourites, News on Sustainability, Waste Management | No Comments »
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