“Let’s Talk Rubbish”

Nikki Elder’s story of attending the Waiheke Skill Share, April 2014

As told to Justine Skilling, the Mangere Bridge WasteWise Storywriter

I chose to go to the Waiheke Skill Share weekend to take a break from mothering for a good cause!  I wanted to learn how to be more effective in teaching others about waste and to be better informed about Council’s plans.  Janine and I made the journey over to Waiheke using five different modes of transport (car, bus, train, ferry and walking).

We were welcomed with a powhiri on to the Piritahi Marae. I haven’t experienced a powhiri for a while and it was the start of a weekend that at times felt very humbling.  I don’t usually enjoy the round of introductions, but participating in the powhiri helped me to see the value of sharing stories.  Even though people can be polls apart in life, we were there with common goals.

The itinerary for the weekend gave us various opportunities to see what people and groups are doing on Waiheke to reduce waste. The New Hope Shop, which is refuse and recycling under one roof, was absolutely MAGIC. The shop is part of a not-for-profit trust that fixes and sells whatever items people bring in, from old mattresses and clothes to bits of wood.  The trust diverts waste from landfill, reducing the cost of rubbish collection for the whole Waiheke community.  It creates employment for locals and generates enough income to provide a small fund that local groups can apply to for anything from sports team uniforms to emergency grants for people in need.  The people working at the New Hope Shop obviously love their work. The volunteers don’t need to be supervised because they’re so motivated by what they’re doing.

I also found Kai Conscious Waiheke really interesting.  It’s a pilot project helping people to measure the amount of food that’s wasted by their household. People sign up and are encouraged to think about the food they buy to eat but which doesn’t get eaten. It’s made me think about the food we waste at our place, even though we have a compost bin, dogs and chickens, and has encouraged me to take steps to reduce this wastage.

The weekend also gave us the opportunity to meet like-minded people from our own area of Auckland, including Koia Teinakore, president of the Onehunga Mangere United Softball Club and a member of Papatuanuku Marae, and Anna Jacob, president of the Bridge Park Tennis Club in Mangere Bridge and a neighbor of mine in Ihumatao.  Both will be great connections for us!

The “aunties”, three lovely Indian ladies from the Papatoetoe-based initiative ‘Fashion with Passion’ also attended the Waiheke Shill Share.  Their group applied for and received Council funding to turn unwanted fabric into bags, headbands, restyled skirts, all sorts. Too cool!

         The weekend on Waiheke showed me that every community needs to be set up to reduce its own waste. I’d like to think that what’s happening on Waiheke could happen in Mangere Bridge as well, as there are lots of like-minded people here.  I hate waste, especially when it’s dumped on the outskirts of my neighbourhood and in culverts.  Rubbish is damaging our streams and waterways and destroying our environment. Through our Mangere Bridge WasteWise Initiative I hope we can encourage people who can’t use something to find someone who can (e.g. Manukau Beautification Trust e-cycling service). I enjoy reducing waste and I want to pass this value on to my children and my mokopuna.  The Council has some great initiatives and we need to learn to utilise them effectively for our children’s children and for the environment.

  

Sweet Talks

Friends of the Farm and Foreshore hosted the first of what we hope may become a series of neighbourhood “Sweet Talks” at the Farm last week.  Our vision for the evening was to bring together as many local residents, community leaders, workers, volunteers and business owners as possible, to share what our Friends’ WasteWise group has been doing in the community, and to generate ideas for ongoing waste reduction in Mangere Bridge.

The event was widely advertised through the Harcourts’ Food and Wine Festival flyer, delivered by our Friends group and other wonderful community volunteers, to the 2500 households in the area.  Using our newly created database of around 50 community groups and organisations in Mangere Bridge, we also individually contacted a representative from each group to personally invite them to the meeting and asked them to extend this to interested members.  As is often the case in our community, word of mouth proved to be a powerful advertising tool and many people came along because of a personal connection to one or other of our group members.

On the night, 42 people, with a combined total of 774 years connection with Mangere Bridge, joined in our WasteWise conversation!  Participants were connected with a broad range of local groups, including churches, schools, early childhood centres, sporting groups, interest groups and businesses.  Most lived locally as well.  Our warm up activities gave us time to identify the things we love about Mangere Bridge and to make connections with each other.

Much planning had gone into the evening, with Frances Hancock  (FOFF) and Jenny Chilcott (Auckland Council) using their fantastic facilitation skills and experience to craft an evening of fun, interactive and informative activities designed to keep people’s attention, impart information and encourage maximum participation. Meredith, Caroline and Janine’s teaching and presentation skills were put to good use in their “Show and Tell” demonstrations.  Other members helped create a welcoming, hospitable atmosphere by serving food and drinks and transforming our space into a cosy “café”.  All of us participated in small groups, taking notes and keeping conversations on track.

The evening generated a lot of discussion and ideas about what makes Mangere Bridge a “WasteWise, caring community” and how we can enhance this vision-in-action.   People highlighted the importance of our connections with each other and suggested ways of encouraging these further, with ideas for community events that might create more opportunities for us to meet together (a Mangere Bridge community picnic!).  Our public spaces were the source of much discussion, with participants generating ideas about how these might be better cared for (more bins, with recycling/ composting options, community clean ups).  Some suggested environmental education for residents, children and visitors, including classes (composting, gardening, keeping chickens, preserving/ bottling) and projects (making signs, waste sculptures).  

Participants discussed ways to create an image of ourselves as a “WasteWise, caring community”, such as using signage and media to reinforce this idea to ourselves and others.  Our businesses got a mention as a hub for our community and as a means to further promote the WasteWise, caring image.  Finally, our community resources (horse manure, avocadoes, fruit trees, water, olives, any ‘trash’ that could become someone’s ‘treasure’) were the subject of upcycling, reuse and recycling suggestions (community recycling depot, Community Fruit Harvesting, fruit/ vegetable trade table, water tanks).

Attendees gave overwhelmingly positive feedback about the evening.  They told us they enjoyed meeting and interacting with others in the community, sharing and generating ideas, the food and drink, the friendliness and passion of our group, the organisation and facilitation of the evening, and the information they received.   Of the 28 evaluation forms filled in, 27 people would come to Sweet Talks again and would recommend it to others.  25 people said they supported what our Friends group is doing. 

Mangere Bridge resident Damon Shelly took the time to email further feedback after the event. "The biggest thank you for hosting/creating this event. Much, much more fun than I’d imagined, very well run – and I was taken aback at how misinformed I was when it comes to environmental issues and recycling. The knowledge shared is invaluable and will certainly be passed on. I was also tickled to meet a neighbour who I have lived beside for 3 years and never knew. Any one of these good things would have made the evening worthwhile, together it was outstanding. Thanks again, I’m looking forward to being a part of the next ‘Sweet Talks’ "

People suggested that at future “Sweet Talks” we could include other ideas for reducing waste (e.g. composting workshop), practical ways for participants to get involved in what we’re doing, updates on the progress of some of the ideas generated first time around, and more of the same!

Our group was extremely heartened by the turn out and response to our first “Sweet Talks”.   People really engaged with the activities and questions and were genuinely interested and supportive of what our Friends group has been doing.  We feel a real sense of mandate from the gathering to keep doing what we’re doing and spread the net so others can participate. Some fantastic ideas were proposed and we look forward to discussing these further and imagining how they can come to fruition in our wonderful community.

Mangere Bridge Food and Wine Festival

Our First Measurable Success: 140kg diverted from landfill!

Our WasteWise team contributed expertise and people power to the annual Mangere Bridge Food and Wine Festival last week, making this our first official Zero Waste event.  Our environmental educators Meredith and Caroline (along with our organiser extraordinaire, Janine) put their Zero Waste training to work, liaising with Carol-Anne (Village Manager, Mangere Bridge Progressive Business Association) before the event to ensure that as much of the waste produced as possible was compostable or recyclable.  Most vendors cooperated with the packaging advice given, although some of the regular market stallholders continued to use polystyrene packaging. This is something we will need to assist them with in the future.

Using our community networking skills, our WasteWise team rallied local residents to act as waste champions. Prior to the event, we worked together with 10 new recruits to achieve a flyer drop to 2500 Mangere Bridge households, using the opportunity to not only advertise the festival but also draw attention to our Mangere Bridge WasteWise project and invite residents to our next event. On the day, six new volunteers helped to supervise our two (very professional-looking!) bin stations, bringing fresh enthusiasm and passion to our efforts.  

We all donned Zero Waste caps and aprons and positioned ourselves strategically between bins so we could assist people in sorting and disposing of their rubbish appropriately.  Pictures and actual items of rubbish were displayed on the bins to make the job easier for festival-goers (and ourselves!).  A myriad of waste items were in use on the day, from compostable wooden cutlery, vegetable-based plastics and paper towels, recyclable containers, bottles and cans, to polystyrene containers and plastic wrappers destined for landfill. 

Most people were co-operative and enthusiastic about our efforts to reduce waste.  Once again, children and young people were particularly good role models for their parents and other adults!  Several people were interested in the upcoming changes to kerbside rubbish collection and asked for more information.  Only a few people resisted the opportunity to sort their rubbish and expressed their disapproval of what we were doing.

However, the results spoke for themselves.  At the end of the festival we weighed the rubbish bags for the first time, which meant that we were able to accurately ‘measure’ the impact of our work.  And what an impact it was!  We were able to divert almost 90% of the waste produced at the Food and Wine Festival (or 140kg of rubbish) away from landfill.  Over 50% of the total rubbish collected was taken away for composting (Thanks to our faithful friend, Steve Rickerby of We Compost, who delivered the bins, brought the scales and took away all streams of waste, free of charge).

“The waste was really clean and well sorted”, said Steve, after the event.  Festival organiser Carol-Anne expressed her sincere thanks to everyone.  “The WasteWise team raised a lot of awareness and were commended for the initiative”.  Local businesses were pleased that the regular sidewalk bins were covered over because the WasteWise stations made for a much tidier event.

With another successful WasteWise event under our belts, our group is continuing to refine our strategy so we can make the biggest difference possible in our community.  From here, we will continue to support Carol-Anne in encouraging the market vendors to change their packaging to compostable or recyclable alternatives.  For future Zero Waste events, we would like to find a way for the rubbish collected during the clean up to be sorted before it is taken away by contractors, to ensure that no opportunities to reduce waste are missed!

All in all it was a wonderfully successful event that helped to raise our profile in the community and to invite more local volunteers to join our growing endeavour.