We’re Going Tiny!

Kia Ora, I have exciting news! Some of you observant friends and followers may have already noticed what I’m planning, especially as I keep sharing posts like these… I just wanted to let you all know that I’m going to be super busy over the next few months. I’m currently working fulltime for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand’s election campaign, and as this is something I’m passionate about, I am putting a lot of my energy in to it. The second reason I’ll be super busy is… My partner and I are building a tiny house! I’ll try my best to post regular updates on the build process as well as the usual waste related blogs. What is a tiny house? If you aren’t familiar with tiny houses, they are small houses that are (usually) on a trailer, called a Tiny House On Wheels (THOW). The tiny house movement […]

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Waste Free Bathroom & Grooming (+Giveaway!)

Hi all and welcome to my new website! In time for my 2 year blogiversary (!) I’ve been busy updating my blog. I noticed that I was lacking some very basic blog posts about simple waste free alternatives. Seeing as it’s Plastic Free July and I have a bathroom essential giveaway lined up, what better time than to write about my zero waste bathroom. I live in a shared flat and am very fortunate that my partner and I have our own bathroom. As such my bathroom is an area that I have full control over the products used. When I first made the zero waste switch I immediately noticed how much excess plastic quickly entered the bathroom. It’s taken me a while to get my bathroom waste free as I used up everything I already had. I still have a few products that are packaged, and a first aid […]

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Lessons From Landfill

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity of working at a landfill carrying out a waste audit. The waste audits are done 6 monthly as requested by the landfill company. The audit was over 6 long, smelly yet enjoyable days. The consultant I was working with shared their in-depth understanding of the waste industry, having been involved for some two decades. The other workers also had interesting stories about waste to share, many of them having done these audits before, or having dumpster dived. The waste audit involved sorting approx. 200kg loads of rubbish that had just been delivered to the tip face. Materials were sorted in to categories, i.e. steel, textiles, green waste, timber, food waste, sanitary, paper, rubble, plastic, glass etc. We sorted over 60 loads of waste in total, which made for an impressive trash mountain at the end. The waste was coming from transfer stations […]

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Waste Free in the South Island Part 2: The Road trip

  Hello, here’s another delayed post for you! I took a bit of time off blogging last month as I went to Australia to spend time with my family. Since I’ve been back I haven’t blogged much as I’ve been up to heaps of awesome stuff. I’ve given a few presentations, workshops and even a university lecture. I am so grateful for all of the amazing opportunities I’ve had this year, and the trips away I’ve been able to take. The downside of traveling lots is my environmental footprint; driving and catching planes emit greenhouse gases. So I have a lot of carbon offsetting to do! I actually realised as I was flying back to NZ from Melbourne that I have flown approx. 50 times in my life. Which is crazy considering I’m not that well-traveled and in my mid-20s. I guess that’s a given when you’re half Australian and […]

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Antara Yoga Retreat

A couple of weekends ago I went on a yoga retreat, at the wonderful Antara Retreat just out of Wellsford. I wrote a rave review on Instagram and decided I would write a short blog post as I had so many questions and wanted to pass on this information to anyone interested. I never planned to write a blog post about the retreat so I don’t have many photos, only of the property. The philosophy of Antara is that of gifting what you can, and not expecting anything in return. After chatting to the wonderful Leigh who was facilitating our weekend, she mentioned Antara are in search of volunteers and specifically someone with marketing experience. Currently Antara is not promoting itself and is relying on word of mouth, which is how I found out about the retreat. So this blog post is my gift back to Antara and everyone who […]

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Waste Free in the South Island Part 1: The 6 Day Tramp

Matukituki River Hello all! You may have noticed I have been majorly absent from my blog since the launch of the Community Fridge. I have been keeping busy with the community fridge, answering inquiries, working, the usual life stuff, and trying to throw in a good work/life balance by taking lots of mini holidays. So far this year I have been camping in the far North (Tapotupotu near Cape Reinga), WWOOFing in Raglan, tramping and road tripping the South Island, volunteering at WOMAD (New Plymouth) and WWOOFing on Waiheke Island. I have a few more breaks booked in, including a yoga retreat this weekend and a trip to Australia to visit my family. If you want to follow along with my adventures, I tend to keep my Instagram fairly up to date. Earlier this year I went to the South Island for a wee tramping/exploring holiday with my friends. I […]

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1 Year of Rubbish

1 year of rubbish fills about half of this bin & 6 months worth of soft plastic recycling on top. Yours truly for scale. Happy new year! Just a quick update while I am between adventures to let you know how my waste free journey is tracking along. To see my waste reduction progress please check out my previous rubbish posts:  1 month of rubbish, December 2015  6 months of rubbish January to June 2016 In 2016 I managed to keep track of all our rubbish, and still have majority of the trash I created over the year. There are a couple of things which did not make it in the bin; a small broken lightbulb, a plastic access card from the gym which the staff member threw away, medical waste created during doctors visits and packaging from a meat pack my partner was given as a gift for Christmas. […]

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Community Fridge Update

Following on from the launch of my Love Food Hate Waste project last week, (original blog post here) here is a recap of the first week of the community fridge. Follow the hashtags #whatsinthefridge & #communityfridgeakl to keep up to date on social media, or contribute your snaps. Launch Day Wednesday 30th November: There was a lot of interest in the fridge before it even launched due to NZ Herald posting an article on their Facebook page in the morning. The fridge quickly started to go viral from there and I was receiving messages from the media, friends and members of the public at such a rate that my phone decided it was too much and called it quits at 10.30am (i.e. half an hour after launch). Fortunately the Griffiths Gardens site has cubby holes with phone chargers! Love Food Hate Waste had done a fantastic job and making sure […]

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Love Food Hate Waste Project: The Community Fridge

You may have noticed I have been quiet on the blogging front over the past month or so. I have been quietly working on a project which is due to launch tomorrow.  In September I applied for funding from Auckland Council as part of the Love Food Hate Waste Fund. With that funding I planned on setting up NZ’s first solidarity fridge. The solidarity fridge started in Spain and from there the concept has been adopted by other countries and cities such as Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Frome‘s community fridge, and Dubai’s sharing fridge. I named my fridge a community fridge as the fridge would be located in a new community space, the Griffith’s Gardens, also launching at the same time. After a lot of planning, health and safety documents, friends to recruit and cafes to approach, the fridge is finally launching, on Wednesday 30th November. I have known about the […]

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Waste Free Travel

How I found Niagra Falls when I visited on the Canadian side in 2014. This post was originally published at Inspired By Maps and has been edited for this blog. One of the first things I noticed when traveling, especially in urban areas, is that traveling results in so much ‘stuff’. Traveling often accumulates a lot of waste; single use plastics, stickers, tickets, receipts, individual use products and so on. Here we are trying to carry everything we own on our backs or in our suitcases and yet we are constantly amassing items we don’t necessarily want or need. Most of these items are used once and then tossed ‘away.’ But there is no away. Away usually means being buried in a landfill where it will last forever, contaminating the environment around it. Or it ends up in the ocean, where it will (again) last forever or eventually over hundreds […]

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