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.

Spotted this news story on TV3 the other night from Jessica Rowe (who interviewed me for the Agpac Plasback story in the new year (but I didn’t make it on screen!)). The amount of perishable goods in stores in the buildings that still have not been or can not be accessed are probably long past their expiry date and without power to keep them cool they will be long past their smelling okay date too. There is a lot of mixed waste going to landfill that just can’t be separated – demolition waste mixed with organics and general rubbish mixed with householder organics. It is just another step on the road to recovery for Christchurch.

The story does have a rat focus (which in itself is interesting) but it does highlight the probably amount of rubbish that is sitting in the middle of the CBD and has been since the earthquake.

Fears rats could take over CBD text

Video Link

Information & Links from Canterburyearthquake.org.nz

• A special rubbish collection in the 4 zones of the CBD will occur on Friday the 11th of March for rubbish – only red and green wheelie bins will be collected.
• Removal of rubbish from CBD sites
• Dumping of damaged carpet
• Metro Place, Bromley will reopen to the public

Beautful and practical reuse of a Mason jar from Re-Nest

Happy August! Apparently there are only 145 days till Christmas – it’s way too early to be thinking about Christmas (and the waste produced from it) but not too early to be thinking about warmer temperatures of spring and summer.

Here are our favourites links that we have found:

• The Ideal Cup – A New Zealand made reusable coffee cup. Just need to give it reusable lids too.
• Bernard Pras art from junk here.
• The race is on to design the world’s biggest win turbine - here from The Guardian.
• Adapting to climate change in New Zealand – a good summary here of the The Climate Change Centre’s latest report.
• 6 good reasons to use a farmers’ market from Simple Organic.
• Rubbish is clogging the Three Gorges Dam in China story here .
• And more on the excellent reuse of the Mason jar above from Re-Nest.

Enjoy a waste free weekend.

Total ChCh Rubbish Sent to Landfill 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010

Have you seen the new Waste Statistics page on the Christchurch City Council website?

The web page shows the following for the 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010 year*:

• Organics collected from kerbside green bins – that’s a mix of garden waste and kitchen waste – approx 8kg per person per month (average) or approx 47,000 tonnes. It all goes here.
• Mixed recyclables collected from kerbside yellow bins – an average of approx 4kg paper and cardboard per person per month, approx 0.25kg of metals per person per month, approx 3kg of glass per person per month and approx 500g of plastic per person per month (on average). That’s a total of approx 41,000 tonnes of mixed recyclables collected for the year to June 30 2010. Mixed recyclables get processed here.
• The amount of rubbish collected from the red kerbside bins was approx 8kg per person per month or approx 37,000 tonnes total for the year.
• Both the amount of organics and recyclables are up but so is rubbish (from kerbside) – we are still producing more rubbish that is not recovered.
• But the total amount of total rubbish sent to Kate Valley Landfill (from kerbside wheelie bins, transfer stations and private and commercial waste operators) has dropped again this year to approx 170,000 tonnes down from 220,000 tonnes in 2009. This is great new  but means we will need to update the waste counter on our website!
• Another important point to note from the waste statistics page is that it states that the Council will be carrying out a survey into the specifics of the waste still being disposed of as rubbish at transfer stations or going into the red wheelie bin. This will be important information as the more we now about what people are throwing away the more education can be tailored or new solutions found.

If you live outside of Christchurch in any of the other Canterbury districts contact your local district council for more information on the waste produced and going to landfill from your area or check out their websites:

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.

Back in 2008 former Christchurch couple Waveney Warth and Matthew Luxon decided to live rubbish free for a year in order to reduce their impact on the environment. Their trials, tribulations, truths and learnings were all documented on their blog and it was really inspiring to read what they were up to and how they were making it work. And they did make it work.

They have just launched a new website with all the resources the rest of us need in order to go rubbish free. We are definitely going to pick up one of their guides and I have been looking to find an alternative to plastic wrap and they have them. Yay! Really excited for them.

You can check out the new website here.

This website is definitely going in the favourites tab!

Waimakaririr River Source: Teara.govt.nz

A productive (but rainy) week this week. As well as progressing a number of projects SIFT also spent some time meeting a some more people who work with waste and waste minimisation in Christchurch and Canterbury. Notably I met with the Solid Waste Asset Manager, Kitty Waghorn, from the Waimakariri District Council and learnt all about the waste systems in place for that district. They have two transfer stations – Southbrook and Oxford and have big plans for a new Resource Recovery Park at the Southbrook station as well as expanding into organics (they promote the use of home composting and you can pick up an EM Bokashi system from Waimakariri District Council Service Centre) and providing a recycling solution for the rural residents of the district. Southbrook transfer station includes a Resell shed which they are also looking to expand in order to reduce the amount of rubbish that is sent to Kate Valley Landfill. They will also be launching a Hazardous Waste drop off point in July. And the general outlook for waste reduction in this district is positive with an increase in the amount of recyclables being collected and a reduction in rubbish.

You can find more information on Waste and Recycling for the Waimakariri District here.

Here are the interesting links for this week:

• Trees weeping blue sap from PattersonEnvironmental – shocking dumping of Hazardous Waste in our backyard, Canterbury. It is in our backyard (IIIOB) not NIMBY!
• The desert island with a rubbish problem.
• Fake Plastic Fish takles getting rid of the small bit of plastic in the middle of the pizza – yet another unnecessary bit of plastic (we have seen these used in NZ but not sure how prevalent it is).
• More information on the Glass Packaging Forum’s newly accredited Glass Product Stewardship Scheme.
• A list of New Zealand’s top High School Environmental Champions for 2010 – no one from the South Island?
• Greenpeace’s updated Guide to Greener Electronics – big move to reduce hazardous components.

ASB Classical Sparks

Last Friday the Christchurch City Council put on one of the favourite events of the Summertimes festival, the ASB Classical Sparks. Classical music, a picnic and some fireworks brought between 80,000 and 100,000 Cantabrians to North Hagley park. But, that also brought a mammoth amount of rubbish as well. People brought their own picnics with varying degrees of preparedness and others were able to purchase food onsite.

Being a waste minded person I was a little worried about what would be on offer for festival goers in the way of waste disposal but, the City Council had the waste logistics covered. All around North Hagley park there were the recognisable Christchurch City waste bins – yellow for recycling, red for rubbish to landfill and green for food waste. It was great to see these waste depots dotted around for easier access. As well as being told by the emcee about how to dispose of rubbish (and even told to take it home with you) there were also city council events people standing next to each depot to help event goers put the right rubbish in the right bin. An excellent opportunity to increase a population’s knowledge (and therefore change their behaviour) of how to dispose of their waste in the right way.

It is hoped that every event provides easy access for people to dispose of their waste appropriately or even better events become zero waste.

Regardless of the waste element a great night was had by all.