Meal in Jar - great lunch/snack idea with reusable packable. Source: BlackEiffiel via The Decorated Cookie

Read on below for this week’s list of great links and interesting finds:

• One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
• Paper water bottles for 2015.
• San Francisco bans often wasteful phonebook distribution.
• Commendable cellotape producer responsibility from 3M.
• Shipwrecked.
• Sustainable toothbrush options from My Plastic Free Life.
• A good read on the stark reality of life without oil
• Meal in a Jar - more here.

Have a great waste free weekend.

Recently, I came across a Good USA web story on Canadians being given the option to opt out of receiving hard copy Yellow Pages after two Canadians returned hundreds of unused copies to make the point that some consumers no longer wanted to receive them (and wanted to reduce waste).

So, being the conscious consumer that I am I sent an email with that link to the New Zealand Yellow® team and asked the question if New Zealander’s were going to be given the option of being able to opt out of receiving a hard copy book. I can’t say I have picked up a yellow pages for a long time and usually just use the online version.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive and email back from their Communications Manager Danette Hunter (bonus marks number 1 – a response!) and although the opt out option is not currently available to New Zealanders’ the Yellow® NZ team are aware of the Canadian model and are working on the technology to make the opt out option available in the future.

We have previously blogged about the information in the Yellow Pages about the best way to recycle your old books but, there was so much more that I was not even aware of.
I was pleased to read the following in the email response:

• Yellow® is committed to reducing its carbon footprint
• The directory paper stock for the White pages® and Yellow pages® is accredited by the FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council).
• All of the paper used for printing the books is from timber off-cuts, material that would otherwise have gone to the landfill. [Awesome!]
• All of the books are 100% recyclable and local councils are able to recycle them. They also publish recycling information in the front of every book so that people can find out about recycling in their local region.
• All the inks used are water based.
• The covers are biodegradable.
• They’ve reduced the percentage of yellow wash used for the Yellow pages® from 25% to 15%.
• This year the Auckland White and Yellow pages® will be reduced in size by 10% which will save more paper.

In some environmental areas New Zealand is lagging far behind other countries in environmental leadership from businesses. So, even though Yellow® don’t provide an opt out option (yet) they are conscious of their environmental impact as proven above with proactive measures to reduce the impact of their books.

Their Communication’s Manager Danette Hunter stated that “We’re constantly working on transforming and delivering new innovations into our business and we do appreciate any suggestions for improvement that we receive.”

So, sometimes it is good to speak up, demand and ask suppliers and manufacturers about how they are reducing their environmental impacts – you never know what answer you will get.

Treehouse built in 2009 for Yellow advertising via Treehugger.com

Source - ReNest Recycled Star Craft

Last week got away from us and we forgot to post the Friday Faves we normally do so here they are now:

• Alternative and sustainable Christmas tree options
• Beautiful recycled star ornaments
• A few ideas to help you contribute to a more sustainable way of life this Christmas
• Ingenious gadget that turns paper into pencils!
• Shoreline debris turned to art

How to recycle your White and Yellow Pages

We have just had our new 2010/2011 White and Yellow Pages dropped off today and I thought it would be useful to highlight how they have said you can recycle your old phone books. This is useful information for those who are not so sure what they should do. For those with less than 4 books you can put them straight into the Yellow top recycling bin. For those with between 4 and 50 books you can drop off a local transfer stations or eco depots. Any more than that and you can either directly drop off at an Eco Depot or contact a paper recycler directly.  Not putting more than four phone books in your recycling bin will be most likely because they will be too heavy.

Good on the Yellow pages for providing this information. The next step would be to provide an opt out service for those of us who are happy to use the internet and reduce the amount of paper used to make phone books and phone books are made from recycled paper not from virgin pulp.

There are a couple of other ideas for what to do with old phone books on the Oily Rag website (scroll down to ‘P’).

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.

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.

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

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:

• Update on Aucklander Emily Harris’s dream of building a roof top pantry.
• New digital junk mail website – say goodbye to junkmail at specialsthisweek.co.nz.
• New ways to work paper here.
• An example of how to live with no money here.
• New cash for mobiles recycling scheme (more research required on what actually happens to the cell phones though).
• Beautiful plastic lamps from Re-Nest.
• Everything and nothing from Steven Emmanuel here. More about the concept of duration of products.

Have a great long weekend.

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

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.