Zero waste: Auckland residents share their journeys to new lifestyle

Monday, 8 January 2018

It takes about six months for Justine Skilling and her family to fill a rubbish bin. (Video first published in 2017)

Justine Skilling never set out to be 'zero waste', rather, the past decade has been about reducing her rubbish.

From upcycled wooden boxes to secondhand furniture, everything has a purpose in her family's south Auckland home.

The Māngere Bridge resident feeds food scraps to her family's pet chickens and the rest of their food waste goes into a large compost bin at the back of their garden.

No food goes to waste at Justine Skilling's house. Her pet chickens and compost system are where all her family's food scraps end up.

It takes about six months for her family of four to fill a rubbish bin - and that's things they can't otherwise recycle or reuse.

**READ MORE:

James Denton is on a mission to get people thinking about what their food comes packaged in.

* Auckland plastic-free grocer GoodFor expanding nationwide

* How long does it take for shopping bags to break down?

Beginning with cloth nappies, Justine Skilling has been minimising her waste for more than a decade.

* Fish 'n chips 'n plastic on our dinner plates

* Talking Rubbish: How to be 'zero waste' at your Christmas party**

Trying to get more youth actively recycling, Tunoa Puna Teraitua released a song about it.

As a waste minimisation facilitator at Māngere East Family Services she's all about pushing towards a sustainable society.

'Being involved in beach clean-ups really opened my eyes to how much rubbish is in our community,' Skilling says.

'It got me feeling really sad that we were disrespecting our beautiful environment.'

An average Auckland household sends about 160 kilograms of rubbish to landfill each year, according to Auckland Council.

For people wanting to reduce that, Skilling suggests looking at what's in your red bin and starting there - for most people it's food waste.

Then it's about recycling and re-using, something James Denton is encouraging with his package-free store, GoodFor, in Ponsonby.

Opened in early 2017, everything is available in bulk and shoppers are encouraged to bring jars, bags, and bottles to stock up on things like food, oil, and cleaning products.

Plastic bags aren't the crux of the problem, he says, it's people's mindset.

'No matter how busy you are, everyone has time, you can easily commit to shopping like this,' Denton says.

'Everyone thinks it's normal to just shop and create waste and there's also no social and environmental responsibility.'

To date about 30,000 people have come through GoodFor's doors and he's already started franchising the business, with a Parnell warehouse opening in January.

Back in Māngere, Tunoa Puna Teraitua has released a music video to encourage young people to change their behaviour towards rubbish.

Teraitua's family has been on a waste minimisation journey for the past few years, and now run workshops on it at Papatuanuku Kokiri Marae.

Through recycling and composting, their family have gone from filling 11 rubbish bags a week to just one, which is mostly just things they can't dispose of otherwise.

The song, which he released in December, was his way of making recycling seem sexy or cool, he says.

'Getting our whanau to use reusable bags instead of plastic is hard when they just want something quick and easy . . . they don't think about where it goes after,' Teraitua says.

'You have to have a good attitude about it and think about what you're doing to help. I'm trying to save mother earth and our fish and oceans.'