WasteWise Team: Reflection and Planning

Last week the WasteWise team, including members of the Friends of the Farm and Foreshore and Carol-Anne Armitage of the Mangere Bridge Progressive Business Association, met with Jenny Chilcott (Auckland Council) to reflect on our journey to date and to plan for the future of our initiative.

We reflected on what’s been of value to us, and members of the group spoke of being on a learning curve, having a heightened awareness of waste issues and being able to pass on this learning to others in the community.  The evolving leadership of our group and the valuing of everyone’s unique contribution were also noted.  The group felt a sense of shared purpose and of working together as a team, which has made this a fun experience as well.  Significantly, the positive response of the community at large was also identified. There’s a great openness among local residents and others towards becoming a WasteWise community.

The most significant changes our group noticed as a result of participating in this initiative ranged from personal experiences of increased knowledge and understanding of waste issues and potential solutions, to excitement about linking with other groups in the wider Auckland area who are involved in this work.  We’re inspired by others and have been an inspiration to others!  There’s a sense that Mangere Bridge could become a “trailblazing community”, through our connections with each other, with business and with Council, as a result of the WasteWise initiative.

As a group, we compared our initial plan with what we’ve achieved so far and found that we’ve done a large part of what we set out to do!  We’ve created a core team and an action plan for the initiative.  We’ve built community awareness about our project through the local newsletter, community noticeboard and through making a dramatic appearance at the local Santa Parade.  We’ve upskilled ourselves on waste issues through attendance on an Extreme Waste Tour, ACZWA Zero Waste training and Skill Share Waiheke.  We’ve held three public waste demonstrations at local events (the market, Ambury Farm Day and the Mangere Bridge School car boot sale).  We’ve done preparatory work for the planned community hui by building relationships with our local Te Puea Marae, schools and other groups. And we’ve begun to create a user-friendly database of these contacts.  We’ve also recorded the unfolding journey of our project through our Mangere Bridge WasteWise blog, which helps us to reflect on and learn from what we’re doing

With assistance from Sunshine Yates (Waste Not Consulting), Carol-Anne has been hard at work in our ‘village’, raising awareness among café owners and gaining their interest and buy-in to working together to divert food waste and leftovers away from landfill through a practical solution.

Our discussions helped us to further hone our vision for the project for the next three months and potentially beyond.  Next steps for us include planning and delivering our two community hui and putting together a new WMIF (Waste Minimisation Innovation Fund) application.  We’ll provide WasteWise consultation and hands-on assistance at upcoming local events including the Mangere Bridge Food and Wine Festival, the Waterlea Summer Festival and the Mangere Bridge School reunion.  We’ll continue to work on our branding, developing resources (including a checklist for organising zero waste community events), assisting the business community to reduce packaging, recording our stories on our blog and developing our community database.

We still have a way to go to spread awareness across the community and build a network of community volunteers willing to assist with WasteWise activities and other community events or working bees. Generally people are very receptive once they understand the issues and they welcome information on how to reduce waste to landfill as well as other practical solutions such as looking for purchases that have less packaging.

Our group was inspired to hear that Auckland Council is so excited about what we’re achieving that a member of its Waste Minimisation Team will showcase our work at an upcoming WasteWise conference in Queenstown!  Perhaps our fledgling example will encourage other communities to take collective action. Our efforts are slowly beginning to show what’s possible when we love the place where we live and can work together with a shared purpose, valuing the gifts that are already amongst us.