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Posts Tagged ‘SIFT’
Friday, August 27th, 2010 by Admin
 Use egg cartons in the garden and then compost them. Another week has flown by. The SIFT week has been full of a couple of new potential applicants, board papers, research, current projects management and some admin thrown in for good measure.
Lots of different things have popped up through our google reader and other newsletters, here’s the best links for you this week:
- Past SIFT project Envirocomp has received $30,000 through the MfE’s Waste Minimisation Fund to carry out a feasibility study on expanding their nappy composting. More here.
- Photos of dumped e-waste being searched through by Ghanians looking for the valuable metals to sell. Not the best photos – this is quite sad and should not be occuring. More here from The New York Times.
- Waveney from Rubbish Free’s roundup of their weekend at the Nelson Eco Fest here.
- Have you found your WalkScore yet? More here from World Changing. Walk Score is based on Google Maps so it you know there are more services and utilities in your area that would make your Walk Score better update Google Maps with the information.
- Philipe Stark has designed home and urban usable wind turbines. From Greenpages. Now they would be a stylish addition to any home.
- Creative ways to drink tap water from Re-Nest here.
- Molly Eagen is a 25 year living in Minneapolis, USA and is attempting, as part of her thesis, to live 100 days without oil. This is a well researched blog that provides great ideas and new ways to live for all of us. Oil permeates nearly all facets of our 21st century lives so we are looking forward to seeing how she gets on living without it. Could you live 100 days without oil? (Originally via Re-Nest).
- Interactive map that shows the Earth breathing – tracking global CO2 emissions in real time. It takes 14 minutes for New Zealand to clock up 1000 tonnes. It is very well done and you can scroll over each country to see the stats.
- The biodegradable pen from GOOD USA.
- The United Nations Environment Programme has released a new report on sustainability and behaviour change. This is a great tool for all of you in communications, marketing and social change. Developed in conjunction with our favourite Sustainability Communications organisation – Futerra. You can download the report here (originally via Celsias).
- Love this video celebrating the 2010 World Humanitarian Day here.
- This is another great infographic …The National Geographic looks at how much water is embedded in everything we use (note these measurements may be different for NZ). Scroll to the right to see a whole raft of different products from meat, vege, oil, energy, solar. Very interesting.
- This has been one of the blog topics this week so we might as well add it to the list too – Japanese firm Blest is making fuel out of plastic. The video shows how it is all done. We like the way that the machine is portable and could be used for smaller or remote sites.
- Maybe we should just do a graphics blog post! Here is another one from the BBC showing how big different things are against the size of your own country - things like the Pakistan floods, the Pyramids, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, World War II and the Twin Towers.
- Also from the BBC Mexico has completely banned plastic bags and if you use them you go to jail! More here.
That will definitely keep you going for the weekend and we hope it is a waste free one!
P.S You might have noticed that our waste counter is lighter than it was last week. We have updated it to be in line with the waste statistics from the Christchurch City Council for the year to June 2010 which is 179,207 tonnes to Kate Valley Landfill. That’s a 20% drop on last year meaning our waste counter would have been way out. It was updated by the nice people at HairyLemon.
*Image via here.
Tags: 100 days without oil, Blest, Breathing Earth, CO2 emissions, e-waste, Envirocomp, Futerra, Google, mfe, oil, Philipe Stark, plastic, plastics, Rubbish Free, SIFT, sustainability communications, UNEP, Walk Score, waste, Waste Minimisation fund, water use, wind
Posted in Friday favourites, News on Sustainability, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 by SophieR
Local Charity Reducing Textile and Clothing Waste Through Rag Initiative
Ever wondered what happens to your clothes after you put them in a donation clothing bin? No? Presumably the clothing is directly transported onto shelves for resale. Right?
We recently headed over to St Vincent de Paul in Stanmore Road to find out what they are doing with the clothing they receive in their clothing bins. Fed up with paying for waste clothing to go to landfill they felt that they could do better and come up with new solutions for the clothing that they could not sell.
Interestingly, here in Christchurch only 25-30% of donated clothing actually enters the St Vincent de Paul stores. The other 65-75%, due to donations being of such a poor quality (yes, clothing bins donations require a level of wear-ability), are dumped. Into landfill. Until now.
St Vincent de Paul has decided to reuse the unwearable clothing in a different way. By approaching local industries the charity found that some of the clothing can be turned into usable rags, customised to the requirements of local businesses who can use them (not just in a couple of sizes). The rest of the unwearable clothing is stockpiled waiting for a solution – currently four containers have been filled.
The purchase of a commercial over-locker has allowed a skilled machinist to customize toweling specifically for car groomers and cleaners and t-shirt material is specifically for mechanics (good oil absorbtion). With an increase in demand from these services the reserve of toweling fabric is now running low This is a welcomed income input for the charity.
In comparison to St Vincent de Paul, the Salvation Army has 40% of their donated clothing going to local shops for resale and 60% is sold on to a third party who exports the clothing to Africa.
Most surprisingly, the Red Cross imports clothing from Australia, with orders (like a commercial store) being placed to a central warehouse hub across the Tasman. 128 tonnes of second hand clothes were shipped into Tauranga, as quoted in The Press (05/05/2010) due to insufficient donations of a high enough quality from within New Zealand for resale in New Zealand stores. With 4% of waste nationally* being textile waste, the 128 tonnes is an unfortunate addition to the future waste stream.
There are non charitable businesses that work within this small industry also; Tasman Traders and Doonans are rag traders who take old clothing and make them into rags of a few sizes (although not customized for each service like St Vincent de Paul are doing) – and although a percentage of their profits go to charity, this may be as little as 1%. The Traders bins out number charity bins, with hundreds distributed around Christchurch city. Currently the Red Cross have no bins, and St Vincent de Paul have 22 at Catholic parishes around Christchurch.
We have a long way to go yet before we have successfully tackled textile waste but in the meantime here are a few tips to ensure your clothes are sold once you have donated them:
So some tips before you put your clothes into the charity bin:
• Check the quality – no rips or stains
• Wash them first
• Ring your local charity to see if they have any specific requirements before you donate them
• If they aren’t really wearable, think of the uses around the house first – turn them into rags (cleaning the car, windows, washing pets etc)
• Some charities also take household goods like sheets, towels, kitchen and cook ware
• Be mindful of the amount of clothing you buy each year – remember to reduce your consumption first.
* http://www.mfe.govt.nz/environmental-reporting/report-cards/waste-composition/2009/
An estimated 3.156 million tonnes of waste went to landfill in 2006 making the textile waste portion of 4% in 2007/2008 equivalent to 126,240 tonnes just in textiles or 31.5kg per person per year. In Christchurch the total waste to landfill in 2009/2010 was estimated to be 170,000 tonnes – using the national percentage of 4% of textile waste to landfill that’s 6800 tonnes just to Kate Valley Landfill or 19.5kg per person per year.
Ever wondered what happens to your clothes after you put them in a donation clothing bin? No? Presumably the clothing is directly transported onto shelves for resale. Right?
We recently headed over to St Vincent de Paul in Stanmore Road to find out what they are doing with the clothing they receive in their clothing bins. Fed up with paying for waste clothing to go to landfill they felt that they could do better and come up with new solutions for the clothing that they could not sell.
Interestingly, here in Christchurch only 25-30% of donated clothing actually enters the St Vincent de Paul stores. The other 65-75%, due to donations being of such a poor quality (yes, clothing bins donations require a level of wear-ability), are dumped. Into landfill. Until now.
St Vincent de Paul has decided to reuse the unwearable clothing in a different way. By approaching local industries the charity found that some of the clothing can be turned into usable rags, customised to the requirements of local businesses who can use them (not just in a couple of sizes). The rest of the unwearable clothing is stockpiled waiting for a solution – currently four containers have been filled.
The purchase of a commercial over-locker has allowed a skilled machinist to customize toweling specifically for car groomers and cleaners and t-shirt material is specifically for mechanics (good oil absorbtion). With an increase in demand from these services the reserve of toweling fabric is now running low. This is a welcomed income input for the charity.
In comparison to St Vincent de Paul, the Salvation Army has 40% of their donated clothing going to local shops for resale and 60% is sold on to a third party who exports the clothing to Africa.
Most surprisingly, the Red Cross imports clothing from Australia, with orders (like a commercial store) being placed to a central warehouse hub across the Tasman. 128 tonnes of second hand clothes were shipped into Tauranga, as quoted in The Press (05/05/2010) due to insufficient donations of a high enough quality from within New Zealand for resale in New Zealand stores. With 4% of waste nationally* being textile waste, the 128 tonnes is an unfortunate addition to the future waste stream.
There are non charitable businesses that work within this small industry also; Tasman Traders and Doonans are rag traders who take old clothing and make them into rags of a few sizes (although not customized for each service like St Vincent de Paul are doing) – and although a percentage of their profits go to charity, this may be as little as 1%. The Traders bins out number charity bins, with hundreds distributed around Christchurch city. Currently the Red Cross have no bins, and St Vincent de Paul have 22 at Catholic parishes around Christchurch.
We have a long way to go yet before we have successfully tackled textile waste but in the meantime here are a few tips to ensure your clothes are sold once you have donated them:
So some tips before you put your clothes into the charity bin:
• Check the quality – no rips or stains
• Wash them first
• Ring your local charity to see if they have any specific requirements before you donate them
• If they aren’t really wearable, think of the uses around the house first – turn them into rags (cleaning the car, windows, washing pets etc)
• Some charities also take household goods like sheets, towels, kitchen and cook ware
• Be mindful of the amount of clothing you buy each year – remember to reduce your consumption first.
* http://www.mfe.govt.nz/environmental-reporting/report-cards/waste-composition/2009/
An estimated 3.156 million tonnes of waste went to landfill in 2006 making the textile waste portion of 4% in 2007/2008 equivalent to 126,240 tonnes just in textiles or 31.5kg per person per year. In Christchurch the total waste to landfill in 2009/2010 was estimated to be 170,000 tonnes – using the national percentage of 4% of textile waste to landfill that’s 6800 tonnes just to Kate Valley Landfill or 19.5kg per person per year.
Tags: charity bins, christchurch, clothing, donations, SIFT, SIFT blog, textiles
Posted in Business & Sustainability, Other Sustainable Initiatives, Sustainability in Action | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 by Admin
  Comspec have a flash new website with a great video on the opening of the plant. You can read more about how the Sustainable Initiatives Fund helped Comspec here with finanical assitance in the form of a loan or check out their video here.
Tags: Comspec, loan, plastic waste, SIFT, video, website
Posted in SIFT Projects, Waste Management | No Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010 by Admin
 Bicycles for Recycling at Resource Recycling (ChCh) These weeks are flying by – soon we will be talking about how to have a waste free Christmas and summer holiday and feeling the heat rather than the cold! But, in the meantime here are some cheery mid-Winter links for your Friday.
- How to make your own magazine files – genius from Re-Nest.
- A treehugger article by Fred Pearce on the growing problem of consumption not population here.
- A possible solution to textiles waste from NYC here.
- Ideas for recycling old linen here.
- Green Investment Bank proposed for the UK reported by the Guardian here.
- New Waste Facilities Survey from the MfE here.
Have a Waste Free Weekend.
Tags: consumption, diverting waste from landfill, Friday favourites, green investment, landfill, linen, Re-nest, recycling, SIFT, the Guardian, Tree Hugger, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | 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 »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010 by Admin
 Source: Flickr promqu33n photostream Phew! What a week! Project meetings, strategic planning, new enquiries…All go! But as always we still kept a look out for the waste and sustainability links that could be interesting for our blog readers. Here are this week’s Friday Favourites:
- I watched the No Impact Man movie this week, finally and it was excellent. Inspired me to do a lot more no impact living especially when it comes to waste. You can read Colin Beavan (No Impact Man)’s blog here or get inspired and take action here and watch a clip from the movie here.
- 21 Councils in New South Wales, Australia have formed an alliance to halve the amount of waste going to the Albury Waste Management Centre in Southern NSW as they are running out of room. More here.
- Latest tonnage statistics from the MfE on waste to landfill here.
- Have you heard of the Pacific Gyre and all of the plastic waste circulating around it – Beth from Fake Plastic Fish blogs about why we can’t clean it up here.
- Celsius.co.nz posted a really informative video on what happens when BP spills….coffee!
- Want to know what is happening in New Zealand’s energy sector for the past quarter (and the carbon emissions associated with that)? Check out the lastest NZ Energy Quarterly from the MED.
- How to make a house out of an aeroplane here from Re-Nest.
- Another great find from Re-Nest - Reclaimed and upcycled Apple Gadget chargers – love the typewriter.
- National Geographic’s Human Footprint movie – a look at consuming from birth to death and how much we consume. Info here and short clip here.
And if you haven’t already checked it out visit Waveney Warth and Matthew Luxon’s new Rubbish Free website for some great tips and resources.
Have a lovely Waste Free Weekend (WFW)!
Tags: BP spill, Celsius, Energy, Friday favourites, Human Footprint, landfill, MED, mfe, No Impact Man, plane, Re-nest, Rubbish Free, SIFT, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010 by Admin
 Source: Twig & Thistle Sárah Goldschadt Garden Flags Reusing egg cartons SIFT has had a big week this week. I attended the Philanthropy NZ Regional Funders Forum on Tuesday and learnt about how to create a learning organisation from Fiona Ellis, who is the ex-Director of the Northern Rock Foundation in the UK, and what it means to be a social lender from Laura Benedict, a social lending practioner from the US. Laura is in New Zealand at the moment to write a paper on social lending in New Zealand as part of the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Public Policy Fellowship and is the head of the commercial lending department of Self Help, the US’s largest non-profit community development financial institution. Lots of great and useful information from both speakers that I am still digesting.
And yesterday we had our yearly SIFT Strategic Planning Afternoon. We reviewed why we are here, what we want SIFT to be and do, the values, vision, mission and critical outcomes for the next year. One of those is to continue to grow SIFT as a learning organisation specifically to find waste minimisation/avoidance solutions.
We are ready for a New Year full of new projects and new ways of operating.
But for today here are the favourite links from around the world and locally:
Have a great waste free weekend.
Tags: CCC, CO2, garden, GE Lighting, Keep NZ Beautiful, KR Connect, landfill, Paul Stametse, PhilanthropyNZ, Re-nest, Self Help, SIFT, Southland, spring, strategy, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Thursday, June 17th, 2010 by Admin
It seems to be a bit of a mantra but to reduce your waste you need to reduce your consumption. And then if do need to buy something see if you can get it vintage or second hand. Today we visited the Super Shed in Pages Rd (Christchurch) to see what they had to offer (and also to do a bit of vintage foraging). If you can’t make it to Christchurch see if your local District Council or community group runs a Re-Sell shed (or check out TradeMe and other second hand stores for bargains).
The Super Shed is super full of a mix of homewares, furniture, electronics, old suitcases, crockery, cutlery, books, plastic (lots of plastic), vacuum hoses and heads, bags, beds, bed heads, tools, garden ware (lots of great outside seating for the summer), personal entertainment and lighting. You do really have to pick through it to find the gems. I picked up a retro/industrial light shade (very utilitarian) for only $5 and I know others have picked up things like fake gilded mirrors, egg cups, glass jars, frames (that were repainted) and even placemats (the Super Shed has three bins just for placemats). Outside you can also find toilets, sinks, umbrellas and lots of plastic pots for gardening. As we were leaving the next customer was buying an old style push mower that only had a bit of rust on it and someone else had a bag of Retro Christmas decorations.
If you are willing to pick through some of the dross there are definitely bargains to be had. With some creativity you can even update old furniture just with new paint and handles. Worth a look before you buy new. And to think that all that is contained within the Super Shed was “thrown out” by someone. The items are pulled out of the waste to landfill stream and sold on to people in the community for a new life. We wonder where people thought their goods would go or if they even thought about it!
You can read more about the Super Shed here.
Here are a few photos from the visit:
Tags: homewares, landfill, second hand, SIFT, Super Shed, vintage, waste
Posted in Sustainability Resources, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 by Admin
 Source: Flickr speckled_beckle's photostream Yesterday, most of the 164 applications for funding for waste project(s) from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund would have received a letter telling them their application has been turned down. Congratulations to the 29 who did make it through to the next stage – we are interested to see what these projects are. If this was you and your project is based in Canterbury have you thought about approaching the Sustainable Initiatives Fund for assistance?
The purpose of the Waste Minimisation Fund is not too dissimilar to the objectives of the Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust. The WMF was developed to boost New Zealand’s performance in waste minimisation through educational, promotional, technological or infrastructure projects. The objectives of the Sustainable Initiatitives Fund Trust are about reducing or avoiding waste that goes specifically to Canterbury’s landfills through new technology/process or recovering new waste streams or by developing new products or technologies out of recovered materials. Other sub-objectives include creating useful sustainable educational applications from the products or technologies that are developed and/or creating sustainable energy products out of waste and/or creating sustainable job opportunties and contributing positively to Canterbury’s economy. The Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust is apart of a new generation of social lenders with the primary motivation of reducing negative environmental impacts – decreasing waste to landfill.
We have a number of projects on the go at the moment that are a mix of grants, loans and equity investments and cover a range of waste streams and issues. You can check out more of our past projects here.
We had a board meeting yesterday and again the board reiterated that projects need to show their reduction in environmental impact first and foremost. We are super keen to see the waste reduction numbers for the waste stream your project deals with.
If you have an idea that requires financial assistance we may be able to help. Call myself (Olivia Day, General Manager) to discuss if you are eligible and if we can help. Our number is 03 3655655.
Tags: financial assistance, funding, landfill, ministry for the environment, SIFT, sustainable, waste, Waste Minimisation fund
Posted in SIFT, Waste Management, social lending | No Comments »
Friday, June 11th, 2010 by Admin
 We visited the CCC2 Materials Recovery Facility on Tuesday - here's a sneek peek. More to come. Here is this week’s round up of what of the waste, sustainability goodies we have come across:
Hope you have a low impact weekend!
Tags: Bloombery, CCC2, Environmental Protection Authority, Friday favourites, Good Magazine, mfe, Re-nest, recycling, SIFT, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
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