Eating Design from Marije Vogelzang as part of Go Slow Cafe - love the representation of food miles on the board. Source: BlackEiffel

Another tiring week of earthquakes but lots of great stuff happening locally and around the world around sustainability to keep the spirits up. Here are a few goodies we found this week:

• New Greening The Rubble website – more on this next week.
• News from the Beehive- Environmental Champions and Green Ribbon Award Winners
• NZ Herald article on a new grass turf product from company Woolgro made from old coffee sacks and sheep dags. Great reuse.
• Interesting video of a Trimaran made from recycled plastic bottles.  Similar to the sea voyager Plastiki.
• How to turn a wine bottle into a customised water carafe for home – From Re-Nest.
• 10 ways to reduce food waste at home (American but easily customisable to NZ readers) from Good USA.
• Look at this Seed Cathedral! (from BlackEiffel)
• Great recycled fashion blog and facebook page from across the ditch. Quite inspiring.
• More on Marije Vogelazang’s Go Slow cafe restaurant concept here.
• Depressing but true – our oceans are in a dire state – reported by Hot Topic. Final quote by Hot Topic: “This is a cri du coeur from the world’s ocean scientists. We ignore it at our peril…”
• And do you have your issue of the lastest Good Magazine. We love it! Brimming full of inspiring and informative editorial. Simple choices for a better life indeed.

Have a great waste free weekend and hopefully an less shakey one for Cantabs.

Les Mees Solar Farm France Source: The Guardian (Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images)

This is the first list of Friday Favourites for June – lots of interesting links to peruse over Queen’s Birthday weekend:

• Ten places to visit before they vanish with global warming.
• Fishermen being paid to “catch” plastic.
• Re-imagining recycled materials.
• Beautiful fields of…solar farms in france. This could work here.
• The Colours of Rubbish – beautiful or not?
• The new Nissan Leaf Ad – would you buy one?
• Carbon Dioxide Emissions for 2010 increased – worrying for tackling climate change – we need to do more, now.
• More on Carbon emissions here from the Guardian.
• New solution for dealing with organic waste – project funded by the Ministry for the Environment.
• New types of planters – ideas for Spring.

New Eco Shop on Blenheim Road (formerly the Super Shed in Pages Road) - now open

For the final Friday in May here are some cool links we have come across this week on recycling, sustainability and the environment:

• Keep up your beauty regime whilst remaining eco-friendly (via MyPlastic Free Life).
• DIY stylish recycled bird-feeder
• Unique guitar picks made easy
• Hope for corporate responsibility from RubbishFree
• New controls on contaminated soil from the Ministry for the Environment.
• Local news: Lyttelton Port reclamation

Have a great waste free weekend.

Source: Re-Nest via Just a Girl

Here are this week’s favourite links from around the world:

• From glass jar to travel mug! Plastic free living from Re-Nest – make it yourself.
• Ever wondered how to responsibly dispose of batteries?
• Sustainable computer hardware  – awesome felt mouse.
• Reinventing the wheel with this great rug.
• A step forward for New Zealand’s environmental management – the EPA
• A giggle on the subject of climate change
• Toilet Paper Tube Wall Art (see photo above).

Have a great waste free weekend. Remember every little habitual change helps.

Source: Re-Nest

Here are some great links we have found over the past week on sustainability, waste and plastic:

• Sustainability vs. Renewability – A Love Affair
• Plastic fantastic? A great read that will give you the true long-term effects of the world’s obsession with plastic in every-day life.
• Seven basics to help you maintain sustainability
• Your chance to be part of something BIG that will educate, inspire and encourage recycling!
• Proving that reusing and recycling can be fantastically stylish: the chair made from recycled refrigerators
• DIY recycled plastic bag pendant light from Re-Nest

Have a great waste free weekend.

Image found via trademe

Why don’t we bring back the glass bottle for milk and other liquid drinks? They can be reused over and over and recycled many times unlike plastic which has potential health issues with leaching chemicals and definite resource issues as plastic comes from a finite resource.

Found this article from TVNZ in 2005 on when glass milk bottles disappeared and this article on the 2010 WWF New Zealand Eco Design Competition winners – a team from Massey University with ‘No Frills, Just Refills’ . A great idea for refill stations in supermarkets.

Don’t forget to check out UnPackit and send in your ideas for best and worst packaging from NZ.

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: Re-Nest Roof made from recycled plastic bottles

The year is streaming past already – it’s February next week – and we are in full projects mode here at SIFT with a new set of potential new project applications already! But, to have a breather this weekend here are our Friday Favourites (lots this week):

• New research from Victoria University shows that homeowners are still reluctant to make more eco changes to their houses says Celsias.
• A low income house made from recycled materials from Inhabitat.
• A printer that uses disappearing ink so you can reuse paper – too cool! From Re-Nest.
• For all those surfing dudes and dudettes in American a company called Rerip are keeping old surfboards (made from toxic materials like polyurethane and polystyrene) from going to landfill.
• The Age, Australia, recently reported that Australians waste AUD$7.8 billion of food per year. Now that’s an incredible waste and an inefficient use of the Earth’s resources.
• American ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s are going to convert icecream waste into energy.
• University of East Anglia scientists Tim Lenton and Andrew Watson have just released a book about the need to recycled everything, Revolutions that Made the Earth. This will be added to the SIFT library when it comes out.
• Levis has started a campaign to raise awareness around the waste associated with the production of its jeans especially the amount of water that is used. More here from Good USA.
• Need to know how to make something yourself? Try Instructables.
• Another leader from the next generation – Jonathon Lee (via Minimonos).
• Landis Carey, a writer from Re-Nest, is making changes to live a life with less, step by step each week. Check it out here.
• And finally, the Beehive announced another project to be funded by the Waste Minimisation Fund (Ministry for the Environment)  – $200,000 to go towards a mussel shell recycling business in the Nelson/Marlborough area to turn the waste mussell shells into viable feedstock (mostly calcium). More here.

Have a great waste free weekend.

Yesterday TV3 interviewed me for a story on the Agpac Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme. Unfortunately, my bit and a mention of SIFT was not used in the story. But, it is still a good story from Jessica Rowe and great promotion for the Plasback Product Stewardship Scheme.

Story text.

Video.

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).