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Home and Away

Waste less and save more than the planet:

Most of what we do to save waste also saves us money. 

 

Waste less money and fuel traveling:  

Fuel is expensive and it amazing how much you can save through active transport. Needless to say its also better for your mind and health.  

  • So drive where you need to then try to walk, scoot, skateboard, or bike the rest. Even when you drive, by strategic parking you can still really maximise the walk. 
  • Use the eBus when it is going your way. If it doesn’t go all the way remember you can get the rest of the way yourself. 
  • Carpool. There are ride-sharing apps for this.  
  • Electric car, bike, longboard and scooter options save fuel and also money, once your original investment is recouped. 
  • Drive at optimal speeds with good trye pressure.  Choose the most fuel efficient car that meets your needs. Size really does matter! 
  • Limit in person meetings for business by using digital conferencing apps. Your job might allow working from home, sometimes if not regularly. 
  • Holiday locally. Explore your own region, go sightseeing, relaxing, tramping, boating or biking. Adventure is at your doorstep anywhere in NZ, and certainly right here. 
  • Staycations ( as local as it gets!) are a great opportunity to chill and do all the things you want to do but never have time for. 
  • Driving, especially with a full car, almost always uses less fuel per person than flying the same distance. 
  • If you travel overseas go less often for longer. Slower travel is less wasteful and a better way to experience local culture. Longer stays make rewarding and more affordable options like WOOFing, volunteering, house sitting and house swaps, possible.  

 

Wasteless by being organized:  

  • Wasteless recycling by getting it right for collection: Know what’s collected and what’s not. Check labels and recycle only what you know you can. You will waste less erring on the side of putting things you’re unsure of in the rubbish. While you want to recycle it, you don’t want the rest of your recycling bin becoming rubbish. If it’s not clean don’t put it in. 
  • Put aside recyclables that your household collection doesn’t take. when there’s enough to be worth a special trip, or when someone’s going that way anyway, take it to the right  collection point.  
  • Likewise if you collect and organise other things you can’t immediately reuse, repair, donate or repurpose, you will be able to do it when you time or opportunity. 
  • Have a mending basket somewhere you sit, with all the equipment you need so you snatch a few moments here and there to mend and upcycle. The internet has plenty of inspiration and instruction. 

 

Waste less by sharing stuff:  

Do you have tools and equipment that’re only used occasionally cluttering your place?  

  • Get more use from it, and maybe share maintenance or purchase costs consider shares or swaps with your friends, family or neighbours. 
  • You need some simple rules recorded. Maybe for more valuable items or a joint purchase, consider a simple mutually agreed contract. 
  • Consider hiring rather than buying. Tools from hire centres tend to be fit for purpose and reliable. Often when you take into account purchase price and maintenance it can work to be cheaper and more efficient.
  • In time we might have a tool library here.  

 

Waste less by not being taken in by greenwash: 

Try and get good at recognising greenwash. It’s fun to spot the techniques used to pass something off as better for the environment than it actually is eg.  

  • vague terms like eco or green, 
  • lots of images of nature,  
  • claims with no backing
  • companies focussing on a small beneficial part of their business while ignoring the damaging part. Oil companies are adept at this.  

Reliable certifications help but an absence of certification can often mean it was too expensive to achieve rather than disqualification. Small business often doesn’t have the necessary resource. 

 

Waste less paper and printer ink: 

  • Have a box where you put all your GOOS or “good on one side” paper eg A4 printed on one side only for lists, writing and doodling. If you don’t use much, give it to kids who do. Recycle it in the end. 
  • When printing try and use both sides, and did you know different fonts use different amounts of ink? Ryman Eco, Garamond and Courier use the least. Printer cartridges can be refilled.
  • Refillable fountain pens waste less plastic than disposable biros. Sometimes elegant and expensive, there are entry level models available.  
  • Cancel delivery of a hard copy phone book Go to www.yellowpages.co.nz Click on opt out and fill in the form. Easy. It’s also easy to access numbers online.

 

Waste less clothes: 

  • Look critically at your wardrobe at least once a year. How much are you actually wearing? What needs repair and what is never going to be worn again? Do the same with your cupboards. What do you need and what is useless? Can you do something less wasteful with all of this, gift, donate, sell, repair, repurpose…. at the very least make a mental note not to buy more.
  • Socks hole, wear out and get lost. We can learn to darn them. It’s also fine to wear deliberately mismatched socks – especially in a good cause. Buying multiple pairs of the same socks means they don’t look mismatched and you save time by giving them all a happy single life in your sock drawer
  • T Shirts can be made into T-shirt yarn (google how) for garden ties or other craft projects. They also make good cleaning cloths. Salvage other fabrics too can also be salvaged for craft projects, upcycling, or cleaning cloths. 
  • Try and buy your clothes second hand. Organise fun clothes swap evenings with your friends.  

 

Waste less energy:

There are so many things you can do to save energy at home and we all know energy is expensive! Go to www.eeca.govt.nz  for lots of tips.   

  • Open your windows to ventilate rather than turning on the air conditioning. 
  • Put on more layers before you turn up the heat.  
  • Use eco-friendly energy saving LED light bulbs. 
  • Turn off lights when you leave an unoccupied room 
  • Hot water is a leading cause of energy waste. You can lower your water temperature to 60 degrees (safer for small children). Insulate your hot water cylinder and pipes, and make sure none of your hot taps leak. 
  • Short showers use less energy than long ones. Showers less energy than baths. Efficient showerheads make a big difference, often without feeling less luxurious. Shallow baths use less energy than deep ones. However if any of the above are a luxury for you, don’t deprive yourself! If you don’t need to bathe every day, and many people don’t, you could opt for the indulgent options a little less often 

 

Waste less water: 

  • Be vigilant about leaks. Replace leaky washers and joiners.
  • Capture rainwater for garden use. It’s surprisingly easy.
  • Short showers use less water than long ones. Showers use less energy than baths. Efficient showerheads make a big difference, often without feeling less luxurious. However if any of the above are a luxury for you, don’t deprive yourself. If you don’t need to bathe every day, and many people don’t, you can opt for the indulgent options a little less often
  • Toilet flushing has some sensitivity around it even though it uses a lot of water. If you have half and full flush options use them. If you have a large old fashioned cistern you can put something like a rock in it to displace water volume.  Otherwise alter the ballcock. Possible but perhaps not desirable, is using  buckets of water collected from the shower to flush. Even more controversial is the rule “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down” . Better used when there are no guests. Also controversial is peeing on grass or selected plants if you have a suitably secluded garden. Apparently it was good enough for Bert Munro. Composting toilets not only save water, they convert waste into valuable compost.
  • Leave some clean water in the sink for rinsing hands and dishes to save you running water everytime.

 

Waste less waste materials: 

DIY. Use your creativity. Look online. How rewarding is it to repurpose and upcycle waste materials around home or salvaged from junk shops.  

  • Make yourself shelving out of recovered wood. Fit out your garage or sleep out with discarded cabinetry. 
  • Make yourself a glasshouse or cloches out of old windows.
  • Instead of bought firelighters dry used tea bags and dip them in meths as needed to light the fire with. Dead dry cabbage tree leaves bunched together and twisted into a knot to become kindling. You can also use used candlewax and cheese as firestarters.
  • Pallets are almost always made of untreated wood. You can cut them up for firewood. They also have an amazing DIY/upcycling potential – compost bins, bike stands, outdoor furniture…. browse the internet for inspiration.

 

Waste less batteries and technology: 

  • Buy and use rechargeable batteries where possible. Make sure you collect all batteries for recycling.
  • Keep your technology as long as you can rather than always buying the latest. Repair it. eWaste is just as big a problem as plastic waste. Make sure you recycle rather than throwing your devices away.