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Posts Tagged ‘waste’
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 by Admin
Thousands of tonnes of silt were brought to the surface of the land in Christchurch during a process called liquefaction. This has seen many residents with helpers and City Care crew sholving the silt into the roads. It was then picked up by the council (with the aim of clearing the streets of it by Friday) and taken to a site in Burwood. They have cleared 120,000 tonnes (and its a heavy tonne say those who have shovelled!) and expect to clear another 60,000. You can read more here in the story from The Press (by Shane Cowlishaw).
Just one of the many “wastes” that we now have from the earthquake. I guess the building rubble will be next.
 Silt Mountain at Burwood Source: The Press
Tags: christchurch, Earthquake, mountain, Silt, waste
Posted in Waste Management | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 by Admin
 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.
Tags: glass, no frills just refills, packaging, plastic, recycling, unpackit, waste
Posted in Other Sustainable Initiatives, Pratical Action | No Comments »
Friday, February 11th, 2011 by Admin
 Kate Valley Landfill (SIFT photo) Here are some interesting tid bits we have found in the past week:
Have a great waste free weekend.
Tags: Beehive, Carbon Nation, climate change, Energy, Friday favourites, Good, Hot Topic, plastic, renewable, waste, WWF
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 by Admin
 PrattWhitney Air New Zealand Engineering Centre Electroplating Workshop A new project we have added to the projects page of our website is the funding of Tech Design and Consultancy Ltd, with a $5,000 grant to assist with a feasibility study, prototype trials and patent searches for their heavy metal filtration system, carried out in 2010. The focus of the project was to determine the effectiveness of using a modified wool copolymer product to filter out heavy metals that are commonly discharged into the rinse water stream from the electroplating industry. In Christchurch, the waste currently enters the Bromley sludge ponds, or is deposited into the ocean via offshore pipelines.
This project is an example of a waste stream that not many people will be thinking about. A waste stream from the manufacturing of a certian element of a product and there must be so much more like this that have a massive impact on the environment but we just can’t see it. Mostly because we only buy the product in its final stage. This is where cradle to cradle , full product life cycle impact analysis, product stewardship schemes and business leadership and responsibility is crucial in really reducing the waste produced from the stuff we buy and the impact it has on the environment.
Read more about the Tech Design project.
Tags: consumption, cradle to cradle, electroplating, Life Cycle Analysis, manufacturing waste, products, SIFT, Tech Design, waste
Posted in SIFT Projects | No Comments »
Friday, February 4th, 2011 by Admin
 Source: Free Fashion Challenge The Life of Clothes February is here already! Here are a few of the interesting waste and sustainability links we have found this week for you to enjoy at the end of the first week of February.
- Green Growth Fund initiative announced.
- New Clean Air goal posts.
- The BlueGreens Key note speech from the Hon. Dr. Nick Smith last weekend in Akaroa.
- Public input requested for new National Policy Statement on Biodiversity
Have a great waste free weekend. Are you trying anything new to reduce your waste this weekend?
Tags: Beehive, biodegradable, BlueGreens, compost, Friday favourites, My Plastic Free Life, packaging, PET, plastic, Ted Talks, textiles, waste, Zero Waste Home
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Friday, January 7th, 2011 by Admin
 Source: Re-Nest Post it Notes from Wood Waste Welcome to the first Friday Favourites for 2011. This is a quick round up of the intersting links and tid bits we have found online from across the world and at home about sustainability, waste, recycling and how to reduce the waste that you have. From what we found this week there is a lot going on in the world already. Here are our faves for some interesting reading this weekend:
Have a great waste free weekend.
Tags: farming, Friday favourites, My Plastic Free Life, No Impact Project, no poo method, organics, plastic, renest, SIFT, simplicity, sustainability, Ted, waste
Posted in Friday favourites | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 by Admin
We’re back and ready to go! Hope you had a great holiday and a happy new year.
Lots of plans at SIFT for 2011 but mostly we will keep on doing what we did last year: providing vital financial assistance to projects that reduce waste to landfill for Canterbury. Hopefully though there will be an increased awareness of the need to reduce consumption first and foremost (and secondly to demand more environmentally healthy package i.e. less plastic). This, by far, is the quickest and easiest way to reduce the amount of waste that is produced.
Here is a quick look back at our favourite/most interesting blog posts from 2010:
Phew – what a year! Looking forward to seeing what 2011 will hold for us both locally, nationally and globally. Don’t forget to check out all the great links from the regular Friday Favourites and the Green Collar Job Q&A’s from earlier in the year.
Tags: 2011, Blog posts, happy new year, our favourites, plastic, reduce, SIFT, Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust, waste
Posted in Pratical Action, SIFT, Sustainability Resources, Waste Management | No Comments »
Monday, December 6th, 2010 by Admin
 SIFT 2010 Christmas Tree The 100% Recyclable and Compostable Christmas Tree
Here at the Sustainable Initiatives Fund office we enjoy getting in the Christmas spirit while implementing our core values of sustainability and minimisation of wastestreams. For these reasons, it was fitting for our office Christmas tree to be one which embodies the three R’s, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
The ‘tree’ is made from bamboo shoots and assembled with unbleached twine. We created our own decorations by using outdated business flyers: creating stars, Christmas chain and even a little angel. The decorations were held together and hung with cotton and we added small torn calico bows and finished the look off with a tree-topping star made from old office file dividers. Through creativity we have made a 100% recyclable and compostable* Christmas tree. The finishing product was so good that it will be the face of SIFT’s 2010 Christmas card!
Let us know how you are reducing your waste this Christmas.
Tags: Christmas, Christmas Tree, consumption, recycle, reduce, SIFT, sustainable initiatives, sustainable living, waste
Posted in Business & Sustainability, Pratical Action, SIFT Projects, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 by Admin
 Pop Up Xmas Tree Card via WikiHow With Christmas just a few weeks away, this is the perfect time to consider and implement some easy initiatives to make your festive season a sustainable and environmentally friendly one. Here are a few simple ideas to help you along the way:
1. Instead of contributing to the millions of metres of gift-wrap used and discarded each Christmas season, presenting gifts in reusable decorated jars, boxes, textile bags or decorated newspaper can make sustainable AND beautiful alternatives to single-use bleached and dyed commercial wrapping-papers (that often can’t be recycled due to the metallic content). If wrapping-paper does make an appearance under your Christmas tree this year, be friendly when eagerly revealing your gift; keep the paper in good condition so it can be reused for next year.
2. With food being an integral element to brining everyone together over Christmas, it is often one of the most wasteful times of the year in regards to leftovers. Get creative in the kitchen following the big day. There are some amazing recipe ideas for Christmas leftovers. Here are a few sites to help:
Channel 4 UK Chefs Christmas Leftovers
Taste Australia Christmas Leftovers
Busy Cooks Christmas Leftovers
BBC – Christmas Leftovers
Any appropriate food which is not used can be added to a compost waste bucket – to help give you some nutrient rich soil in the garden!
3. Support local business and buy local products. This is a great way to offset carbon footprints which rise from the large amount of international transportation and heavy product packaging with the importation of Christmas gifts.
4. If you want to give a gift that will truly keep on giving, check out the links below. With gifts ranging from as little as $15, these gift options pose as an alternative to traditional gifts, but can provide others with experiences and opportunities that will last a lifetime.
World Vision Gift Catalogue
Oxfam Unwrapped
Tags: Christmas, food, presents, sustainability, waste, wrapping
Posted in Pratical Action, Sustainability Resources, Sustainability in Action | No Comments »
Monday, November 22nd, 2010 by Admin
Spotted this great poster on the Good USA site – The Self-Repair Manifesto from ifixit.com. Definitely truths to live by in order to reduce our waste to landfill.
It reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident
Self- Repair Manifesto:
Repair is Better than Recycling – Making our things last longer is both more efficient and more cost effective than mining them for raw materials.
Repair saves the planet. Earth has limited resources and we can’t run a linear manufacturing process forever. The best way to be efficient is to reuse what we already have!
Repair saves you money. Fixing things is often free, and usually cheaper than replacing them, doing the repair yourself saves serious dough.
Repair teaches engineering. The best way to find out how something works is to take it apart!
If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it! Repair connects people and devices, creating bonds that transcend consumption. Self repair is sustainable.
Repair connects you with your things. Repair empowers and emboldens individuals. Repair transforms consumers into contributors. Repair inspires pride in ownership. Repair injects soul and makes things unique. Repair is independence. Repair requires creativity. Repair is green. Repair is joyful. Repair is necessary for understanding our things. Repair saves money and resources.
We Have The Right: To open and repair our things without voiding the warranty to devices that can be opened, to error codes and wiring diagrams, to troubleshooting instructions and flowcharts, to repair documentation for everything, to choose our own repair technician, to remove ‘Do not remove’ stickers, to repair things in the privacy of our own homes, to replace any and all consumables ourselves, to hardware that doesn’t require proprietary tools to repair, to available, reasonable priced service parts.
There is another equally great Repair Manifesto here by Dutch Design collaborative Platform 21.
Put either one of these in your kitchen junk drawer and garage and remember that to repair something you own stops waste going to landfill and creat that bond that transcends consumption.
Tags: diy, Good USA, landfill, reduce, Self Repair Manifesto, waste
Posted in Other Sustainable Initiatives, Pratical Action, Sustainability in Action, Waste Management | No Comments »
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