by Russel Norman
I’ve just been to the party to mark the end of the waste free year for Christchurch couple Matthew and Waveney. You can see their website to track the challenges over the year.
It’s quite an achievement to live waste free for a year and Matt and Waveney are to be congratulated. They had a small bin that was the sum total of their waste for the year.
The Green Party’s Waste Minimisation Act passed through parliament last year which put a very small cost on waste to landfill ($10/tonne), the revenue from which is split between local and central government to fund waste reduction initiatives. The Act also creates the possiblity to establish product stewardship schemes that would give central government the power to insist that different waste streams are managed in a way to reduce reuse and recycle, if there is a Minister for the Environment who wanted to use such powers.
The Act is a very small step towards a society in which resources are reused within closed systems, and energy to run the closed system comes from renewable sources.
The Story of Stuff is a good start as to why we need to reduce waste.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Sun, February 1st, 2009
Tags: consumption, minimisation, Russel Norman, stuff, Waste
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
anyone read Chirss trotters Blog (or is he too right wing)?
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2009/01/disproportionate-response.html
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link to CT blog is banned as it critisices KL
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Yea right.
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link to jh brain blocked as it criticises imaginary things
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Don’t hold your breath for any real impact of the Waste Minimisation Act. Over the past few weeks the National/ACT faction of the NZ Rich List Party has been systematically dismantling Green initiatives as fast as it can. I expect to see the Waste minimisation Act to be at least “reviewed” to make it more acceptable to business sometime during the next several months; possibly by Nicky Wagner being allowed to finish gutting it.. Other initiatives will also be up for the chop, Organics, Environmental education, Wetlands for instance.
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I’m genuinely curious to know the cost side of the very-near-zero waste endeavour. I suspect (but have no evidence to support the suspicion) a lot of man hours have gone into achieving that goal, and if costed even at the appaling minimum wage, its will have been quite an expensive endeavour.
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The costs, dbuckley, are already being paid by the environment, but not costed into the products. Close the loop, let the true cost to the planet/population be apparent and then let the market decide if such products/services are really worth it. It is an expensive endeavour, which we and our children are already paying for.
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The story of stuff is kinda cute but it’s very biased in its us and them approach which doesn’t really do anything except preach to the converted.
I think this type of approach is what alienates normal people to the green approach which seems to be very holier than though with its hybrid cars, low cfc apple laptops and hemp fibre clothes.
I think its fair enough that people can try to minimise rubbish coming into and going out of there homes but if everyone started baking there own bread and biscuits to save on bringing in plastic bags we’ed really be in the poo ‘simply by the extra energy used to run all those ovens.
The question isn’t about little islands of self suffiency, which surely will not work given the population spread, but making the distribution systems for goods more efficient and less encumbent on packaging.
I know it might sound silly but instead of legislation to counter problems why not try encouraging people to return their rubbish to where they got it. Imagine if everytime we went shopping we returned all our packing and packaging back to the place we got it.
But at the same time all of this is merely skirting around the real issues of full employment and planned obsolescence in products to sustain that full employment.
The Greens will be constantly be fighting an uphill battle as long as you fight that battle on the battleground chosen by the old guard. Unless you strip everything down and be honest about core values and realise the compromises, and are honest about them as well, that have to be made then your party will continue merely to be a guilt crutch for well meaning touchy feely university graduates who would run at the sight of real actual labour.
I mean why don’t you work on changing the law for the licensing of vehicles so that what is actually a tax we continuously owe is treated as a crime when we forget to pay what will be backdated anyways.
If your party worked to make life easier for common people we might begin to see that you’re an efficient force worth voting for but when you continue to act as if you are better than us and belittle our part in an economy we feel we have no power to sway then you won’t get anywhere. Be the conscience for the national party, but not as a prick in their side but as a vanguard effort to let them remember that everybody just wants a hassle free life and to feel that the people who represent us don’t just follow their own CV making agenda but spend some time looking at the life of the nobodies who are powerless to act.
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Wow, even Chris Trotter talks sense sometimes!
Pol Pot. Hamas. Whatever next?
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What has that got to do with waste minimisation?
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BP –
thread hijack, troll.
Janine – well said!
Russ – that musta been some party!
I’m gradually greening my flat, 6 months in I have veggies growing, and flatmates recycling more efficiently, composting most of the greenwaste, and we’re mulching around the trees to preserve moisture & reduce watering needs – but we still have a long way to go before we catch up to the example set by these conscientious and committed people.
I will agree with artyone on the subject of *some* things being the perogative of only those with the disposable income to make the right/preferred choices – but I manage to be very sustainable on a low income; I can’t influence my landlord much about some structural issues to do with her property, but I can minimise wastage that is end-user based.
What do we want? Gradual change!
When do we want it? In due course ….
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This is off topic, but I’ve just thought of a simple electricity saving measure which people might be interested in: Rather than boiling you kettle every time you want a cup of tea, boil a full kettle once, and put the left over water in a thermos.
Most electric kettles require the element to be covered by water, to prevent it burning out. My kettle requires two cups of water to do this. Therefore, if I am only making a single cup of tea, I boil twice as much water as I need to. By the time I want another cup, the water in the kettle is too cold to use without boiling it again. I did a back of the envelope calculation and found that using athermos to keep the water hot saves about 0.1 kWh per day, based on boiling one cup of water too much, five times per day (with the element heating the water by about 50 Celsius each time the kettle is boiled (because it is probably still a little warm).
By the way, the water stays hot in a thermos for about 12 hours, plenty of time to use it all up.
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