Furniture is being moved around today in the office including the massive board table we bought last year being moved upstairs. Thanks to one of our trustees Dixon McIvor and his band of strong lifters! Hope they go okay moving the massive bits of glass! And the really early daffodils bought earlier in the week are still letting off a very spring fragrance and provide great loveliness throughout our working day as well!
A few great links have come our way over the past week:
Happened on this lovely educational song by Jack Johnson. It starts about a minute and half into the video. It’s a great little song to teach children about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. You can watch another version on You Tube here – it gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day! “Because three it’s the magic number… Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!”
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.
Beth from Fake Plastic Fish discusses how to store food without using plastic here. It would be great to find glass or stainless steel containers suitable for food storage and like the containers Beth links to in New Zealand – we are on the hunt.
No Frills Just Refills - WWF NZ Eco-Competition Winners
It’s been rather a busy one this week. Lots of projects on the going that lets SIFT continue on its journey of being a catalyst for change in reducing how much of our waste goes here.
But, from around the world, there have come up some inspiring, interesting, informative, innovative and impactful ideas including these:
More ideas for reducing your disposables use from The Good Human.
Millions and millions of disposable coffee cups end up in landfill each year so Starbucks is sponsoring a Betacup design competition to find a solution. We have a source that says that 4.75 million non recyclable non-biodegradable coffee cups are landfilled each year in NZ – yikes! We look forward to seeing the winning solution. Also Starbucks are planning to have only reusable or recyclable coffee cups by 2015 – good move.
Are you a knitter or crafter? Ever thought of havesting the yarn from second hand jumpers? Great post on how to here. It will save you money and have less of an impact on the environment.
Another great Re-Nest find, Nature’s Paper. Paper made in Australia from left over wheat straw – genius idea!
And finally the WWF New Zealand Eco-Design competition has a winner – No Frills Just Refills. A new milk bottle design for supermarkets that is 100% recyclable and reusable and with a self-service milk station (the 21st century Milk Bar?) to cut down on emissions from transportaion and production of plastic milk bottles. Plus, the design is excellent. This is the kind of innovation New Zealand needs to become more sustainable. Congratulations to the team – we would definitely buy this from our supermarket!
Annie Leonard and the team at Free Range Studios have done it again. A lovely little video of the Story of Plastic Bottles. One of the easiest ways to reduce plastic bottle waste is to buy a recyclable metal bottle and fill it up with water from the tap and re-fill, re-fill, re-fill. No more throwing out plastic bottles even if they get recycled.
Even though the video is aimed at the American audience it still has some excellent messages. Christchurch and Canterbury has great home grown tap water that we can use to keep us healthy and hydrated instead of imported bottled water.
It is starting to happen – recycled clothing has hit the mainstream. UK supermarket Tesco have teamed up with ethical fashion company From Somewhere to produce a new line of clothes made in a LEED certified factory in Sri Lanka from old Tesco clothing stock that would otherwise end up in landfill. And prices start at an affordable £16 (NZD$35).
It’s time for New Zealand fashion companies to start recycling their old clothing stock and become more sustainable (as well as providing clothing made sustainably, ethically and with low environmental impact).
We would love to know if there is anyone in New Zealand already doing this?
Source: Inhabitat but taken by Yann Arthus-Bertrand for the Earth from Above series
Around a billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent globally each year – about a quarter of all seasonal cards and then think of all those flowers and boxed chocolates covered in plastic and unrecyclable packaging! (Source here).
A no waste Valentine’s Day could consist of the following:
Handmade card out of what you can find at home (or a recycled paper card).
Homemade baking and/or dinner, breakfast or even lunch.
Only give presents with no, minimal or recyclable packaging or an experience gift like a romantic walk or night in a bed and breakfast.
Give flowers from the garden – lots of roses still out in flower. And steer clear of any unnecessary packaging or that green oasis which goes straight to landfill. Get the flowers wrapped in plain paper (that can be reused or composted) or biodegradable cellophane.
Give a hug (no packaging or waste at all!).
Give a second hand or vintage gift (like vintage jewellery).
Ensure you compost the flowers once they have died (and check where the flowers are coming from to reduce your impact on the environment).
Or the gift that keeps on giving like books (on FSC certified paper) or plants.
Take your valentine to the new Valentine’s Day movie which has been produced with the environment in mind during production reducing their carbon emissions by 67 tonnes and reusing 350 water bottles instead of 21,000 throw away plastic bottles. Read more about how Warner Brother’s Greened their production here.
Love to know any other ideas that for a green Valentine’s Day.
An often blogged about business that is taking a lead on selling products with little or no packaging is London’s Unpackaged store. Set up in 2006 to provide a better way to sell food you can only purchase items if you bring your own refillable storage containers with you. There are some items in cans and glass that can be recycled for purcahse and we love the wooden crates and super large paper bags that contain a range of fruit and vege. They only stock products that are good for the environment. As they say on their website recycling will not be enough to reduce the amount of packaging waste that goes to landfill so we need to consume items with little or no packaging first – again it’s about reducing our consumption to reduce our waste.
Source: Unpackaged
Source: Unpackaged
Source: Unpackaged
Source: Unpackaged
For those living in Christchurch Piko (and Lyttle Piko in Lyttleton) is probably the closest wholefoods store that we have that also has a policy of bring your own refillable containers. Last year they celebrated their 30th birthday and are now a favourite of many who live sustainably. As well as great bulk produce (some organic) they have a great range of seeds (for growing your own produce – no packaging), fair trade goodies and organic goods. There is some packaging but most can be recycled. If you need to use a bag they have brown paper bags which can go straight in the compost.
Keep a look out for other ways to shop with less packaging – visit farmer’s markets, fruit and vege stores that package in old cardboard boxes, grow/make your own, reusable bags for the supermarket (especially reuse those plastic bulk bin bags) and recycle what packaging you do get. And for businesses – start looking at the amount of packaging you produce for your product (or service) and think of ways to reduce or provide packaging that can be recycled (or returned to you for recycling as part of a Product Stewardship scheme) or better yet – can you do without packaging?
Reduce First, Reuse Second, Recycle Third and then only landfill if you really have to.
1. To consume, spend, or employ uselessly or without adequate return; use to no avail or profit; squander: to waste money; to waste words.
2. To fail or neglect to use;
Verb (used without object)
1. To be consumed, spent, or employed uselessly or without giving full value or without being fully utilised or appreciated;
Noun
1. useless consumption or expenditure; use without adequate return; an act or instance of wasting.
2. neglect, instead of use;
3. anything unused, unproductive or not properly utilised;
4. anything left over or superfluous, an excess material or by-products, not of use for the work in hand;
5. remnants, as from the working of cotton, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil etc.
6. garbage, refuse.
Adjective
1. not used or in use;
2. left over or superfluous;
3. having served or fulfilled a purpose; no longer in use.
4. obsolete; excessive, needless.
Wikipedia also has the following helpful definitions:
The Basel Convention: “Substances or objects which are disposed of or are intended to be disposed of or are required to be disposed of by the provisions of national law.”
The United Nations Statistics Division: “Wastes are materials that are not prime products (that is products produced for the market) for which the generator has no further use in terms of his/her own purposes of production, transformation or consumption, and of which he/she wants to dispose. Wastes may be generated during the extraction of raw materials, the processing of raw materials into intermediate and final products, the consumption of final products, and other human activities. Residuals recycled or reused at the place of generation are excluded.”
After looking at those definitions the best one is the wikipedia definition combined with the United Nations Stats Department definition. At any stage of a product’s (or service’s) life there will be waste, some part, process or ingredient that is not wanted or able to be used. When the raw ingredients are extracted or made there will be waste, when the product is designed there will be waste (paper, prototypes etc), when the product is manufactured there will be waste and then when the product is transported there will be waste, as it is consumed there will be waste (packaging, energy) and then when it is no longer able to be used or no longer wanted (as it isn’t trendy or technologically up to date) it will be wasted, thrown away.
Now, what we need to do is make the whole process more efficient to reduce the amount of waste at every single stage (either through product or system redesign, reduction or reuse) and make products that can be reused, repurposed or recycled then we will have a less waste going to local landfills or to other countries.
As always SIFT is keen to hear any ideas that you might have to help reduce waste to landfill.
Annie Leonard and the team at 
