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Posts Tagged ‘plastic’
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 »
Monday, July 12th, 2010 by Admin
Joanna Langford – Up from the plainlands (detail) 2009. Recycled plastic bags, bamboo skewers, sushi grass, 12 volt LED lights, fans and electrical wiring. Commissioned for Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection 2009. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Jonathan Smart Gallery.
Tags: art, electricial wiring., Joanna Langford, LED, plastic, Recycled, waste
Posted in art | No Comments »
Friday, July 9th, 2010 by Admin
 Levis Denim Insulation Source: Cool Hunting Here is the round up of favourite/interesting links we have found this week:
Have a lovely waste free weekend.
Tags: Fake Plastic Fish, Friday favourites, green buses, Green Party, Hungry Planet, landfill, Levis, plastic, recycling, Rubbish Free, SIFT, Time, UNTHA, Westpac
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 by Admin
 ScanWood Modern Wood Utensils On the quest to reducing our waste we need to find other solutions and this is one new one we have come across recently.
A month or so ago a plastic spatula tool (for flipping pancakes and pulling poached eggs out of the water) broke. The head split from the handle. Thinking that plastic was the only option I trundled off to my local kitchen store and picked up a new one with a metal handle (about $20). The old one consciously went to landfill (glue wouldn’t have fixed it). The old spatula had lasted years – the new one within a few uses started to fall apart. And scarily the plastic was coming off the end or melting and could possibly be leaving plastic in our food. So not a good idea. I had read too much from Beth at Fake Plastic Fish to worry about the chemicals from plastic leaching into our food not to try to find a new solution (a change away from plastic had started in other areas but I like to not buy new until the old is too old to use first!).
Then recenlty on a trip to the lovely Meditteranean Food Warehouse I discovered a wooden pasta turner. It was made of beechwood but made in China. Lightbulb moment (LED styles) and I thought maybe there is another option. And last weekend I discovered ScanWood and replaced the plastic spatula with a lovely wooden one also made of beechwood but this time from Denmark (and ony $6 (super cheap compared to the plastic)). So although when you think of wood you think of trees and then trees being cut down and not being used to store carbon if the product is made of sustainably harvested wood (more research required here especially for the China made models) wood is still the better option over plastic. Oil as we know goes into to making plastic. Oil is a fossil fuel that humans have burnt leading to global warming and plastic takes hundreds of years, to break down in landfill. Plastic is not the better option (especially if the product falls apart faster than it should).
Wood on the other hand will not melt into my food, can be loving looked after with some olive oil every so often, will break down over a much shorter time when it does get to landfill and if you buy the right product comes from sustainably harvested wood. It also looks and feels a lot nicer in your kitchen.
 Olive Wood Utensils from ScanWood So the practical action for this week is to purchase wooden kitchen utensils over plastic. If you need to consume purchase good quality that will last a long time, doesn’t leach into your food or negatively impact the environment and makes life nicer!
A new found love of wood has led to thinking about buying wood turned bowls as well instead of using plastic mixing bowls and to find local wood turners who are making wooden kitchen utensils from local wood instead of buying imported product. And now, of course there is the problem with all of the plastic utensils at home. Others can use them so they will be given away instead of throwing them out. Unfortunately, plastic kitchen utensils can not be recycled.
Another good wood product for home cleaning (instead of plastic) is the wood scrubbing brushes from EcoStore. You can get replaceable heads and it cleans much better than any plastic scrubbing brush and lasts just as long. Mixed with a little Dr Bronner liquid castille soap and it makes kitchen cleaning super easy. The wood used is beechwood and the the bristles are made from a vegetable fibre. EcoStore import the product from Germany.
 EcoStore Wooden Clothes Pegs EcoStore also have lovely old-fashioned wooden clothes pegs too (although you could probably find these second hand).
Do you have any other ideas for reducing plastic use/waste?
Tags: beechwood, consumption, EcoStore, Fake Plastic Fish, landfill, plastic, ScanWood, waste, wooden utensils
Posted in Sustainability Resources, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | 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 »
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 by Admin
Last Friday I visited the Becon Dry Waste Recovered Materials Facility in Woolston. The Becon Dry Waste RMF is the only one in New Zealand and is housed in one of the remaining buildings from the old Anderson’s Foundry. It is an impressive building with its old industrial peaked roofing and large industrial hanging lights. The waste processing machine doesn’t seem to fit right with the old style of the building but as Director Richard Lloyd agreed it is good to reuse an old building rather than build new – in-keeping with his business of reuse and recycling.
Richard Lloyd estimates that of the total amount of waste going to Kate Valley Landfill approximately a third could still be recovered and recycled. Richard has developed a site that has the potential to process more dry waste than they are currently taking (Becon is only processing 30% of the current Christchurch market at the moment). The Becon RMF focusses on construction, demolition and industrial dry waste streams. When asked what the spilt between household waste and commercial waste is Richard stated a surprising 3.8% for just households! Although, Richard stated that “kerbside recycling punches above it’s weight class…as it is a valuable educational tool.” So, the bulk of waste that the citizens of Canterbury produce is business, construction or demolition related. Items such as concrete, glass, untreated timber, packaging and plastics are all included.
Richard Lloyd is passionate about his business, about recovering wastes and making the environment a better place for his children.
Here are some photos from the visit:
 The Start of the Recovery Process  The sorting machine  Sorted piles of plastic and timber  Baled Paper  Becon Director Richard Lloyd with chipped timber  What can't be recovered goes to Kate Valley Landfill You can see more photos from the visit on our Flickr site here.
*All images Copyright SIFT
Tags: Becon, cardboard, diverting waste from landfill, Dry Waste, landfill, plastic, recovery, recycling, reduce, reuse, Richard Lloyd, Rmf, timber, waste
Posted in Business & Sustainability, 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, 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 »
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 by Admin
 Baled Plastic Milk Bottles Waiting for processing at Mastagard This week’s Green Collar Job Q&A is with Angus Winstone, Sales Manager for Mastagard here in Christchurch. Mastagard are one of the key industry players here in Canterbury for waste collection and recycling. They collect from around Canterbury, Christchurch and the West Coast and have a focus on recycling as much as possible. They work with SIFT fund recipient Agpac recycling the baleage wrap and other agricultural plastics that Agpac collects from around Canterbury farms. SIFT recently visited Mastagard to check out what they do and we will be posting about that soon. In the meantime here are Angus’s answers:
1. What do you do to live more sustainably (with a low impact) in your life?
Thats a hard one, sustainable living ….. I do the normal recycling, but I have the added advantage of being able to bring things to work to be recycled.
2. How do you live more sustainably at work?
As a recycling company it easy to recycle, slightly cheating! We recycle just about everything in the office. We always turn off our computers at night. I think when you work in an industry that is driven by recycling you don’t really think about it, as we are all trying to come up with ideas to do things more sustainably for our clients, so its just a fundamental part of our business!
3. What do you think is the biggest environmental issue we need to deal with in Christchurch/New Zealand?
The government needs to regulate or legislate the export of recyclables. As a privately funded recycling company we are competing to purchase product from buyers from overseas that are totally unregulated! If recyclables were supplied to the New Zealand recycling processors we would be able to expand and recycle new recoverables!
4. What makes you smile?
My kids playing.
5. What is your biggest pet peeve?
I don’t really have a pet peeve ….. but if I had to identify something that got me upset it would have to be the misunderstandings about plastic recycling. Plastic is a great product, it can be 100% recycled. What is not OK is the low recovery rate!
6. What is your favourite colour and why?
It should be green but I do like blue.
7. Do you have a favourite place in the world? Describe why?
Yes, Lake Tarawera in the North Island. It is a lake that I have been going to my whole life, it’s is the most unspoilt and natural place I have ever seen!
8. What’s your connection to SIFT?
We are working with SIFT on the ‘Plasback’ scheme [*with Agpac] to promote and collect all rural plastics, also they are help us get our message out to the wider market place.
9. Do you remember your favourite teacher and why they were your favourite?
My favourite teacher was probably my Physics teacher, Mr Jefferies. He used to let me electrocute myself, blow myself up …. good times!
10. What do you want to leave behind?
Good worm fodder …… no really, I want to see a recycling industry in New Zealand that works, it would be great to leave behind a robust recycling industry in New Zealand!
11. What do you think the future will bring?
Well I don’t think the hover craft cars are on the immediate future, but maybe we will all be driving hybrid cars instead.
12. Who is someone you really admire and why?
It’s so hard to answer a question like this without offending someone … so im going to say ‘My Dad’ sorry Gandhi.
13. What is happening outside your window right now?
I am eyeing up a timber yard with a whole lot of plastic that should be recycled, why?
14. What is your favourite breakfast?
Weetbix with peaches! Sorry you can’t beat it.
15. What is the best piece of advice you can give us?
I think that the New Zealand recycling industry has been confused with the New Zealand ‘Bale and Ship to China’ industry …. We need to help recyclers prosper, not help the companies that are helping the Chinese recycling industry prosper (and it is). My personal opinions may seem rather strong, but when the Mastagard plastic company is purchasing plastic from off shore and importing it to New Zealand because it is unable to source plastic locally, then something is very wrong. New Zealand is teaming with unregulated commodities brokers and greedy councils stripping the best plastics away from local New Zealand recyclers. If we want the New Zealand recycling industry to blossom, we need to make it an attractive industry to invest in.
Tags: agpac, China, Green Collar Jobs, Mastagard, plastic, recycling, waste
Posted in Green Collar Jobs Q&A | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 by Admin
 photo: SIFT One of our current long term projects is the financial assistance (in the form of a loan) we gave to Comspec in Hornby. We have written about them before on this blog but I thought it was time for site visit. Actually going to where the action takes place, talking to those who make it happen and being amongst the process gives a much thorough understanding of how we have helped.
So, this morning I met Robert and Stephanie Fowler at their plastic recycling plant in Hornby. After going through some background info on what they do I was given a site tour. At one end you have baled plastic milk bottles waiting their turn to be shredded, then washed and then the resulting flakes are formed into resin pellets that are then turned into irrigation piping. A very simplified explanation but in a nut shell that is it and in person it is pretty clear to see the process work from one end of the plant to the other.
 photo: SIFT  Shredded plastic Photo: SIFT In the past empty plastic milk bottles had been packed up and sent to China where they were recycled there. Now, with Compsec’s plant, plastic milk bottles can be recycled “on shore” and provide a feedstock of plastic resin for use in New Zealand (reducing the amount of virigin resin imported into NZ). On shore recycling (especially with New Zealand’s location in the world) will reduce the impact of transportation of materials going overseas thus reducing CO2 emissions from shipping. Plus, the Comspec process can save an average of 1 tonne of CO2 per tonne of plastic that is recycled, further reducing our impactful carbon footprint.
With a network of collectors around the South Island Comspec aims to recycle 1000 tonnes of plastic milk bottles each year. With a 110,000 milk bottles making up a tonne that’s a lot of milk bottles.
SIFT’s focus is to continue to help those who require financial assistance to develop a project that will reduce the amount of waste that ends up in our landfills which will in turn help to develop a strong network of commerically viable businesses and individual projects throughout Canterbury that can sustainable continue making an impact. Not only will this make Canterbury a healthy environment to live in but will also help the Canterbury and New Zealand economies.
Thanks to Robert Fowler for taking time out of his busy morning to show me ’round.
You can read more about Comspec here.
You can also see all the photos from the Comspec launch here on Flickr.
Tags: carbon emissions, CO2, Comspec, Hornby, landfill, onshore recycling, plastic, recycling, SIFT, sustainable initiatives, waste, Waste Management
Posted in SIFT Projects, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
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