Sustainable living event attracts good crowd to Ormondville

CHB District Council solid waste manager Jordarne Wiggins spreading the "reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose" message.

When Lizz Jenkins ran her successful Sustainability Expo in Ormondville in November 2020, she had such a great response she decided to repeat the exercise on July 24 with even more stalls.

The Ormondville Peace Memorial Hall and surrounds hosted nearly 20 stalls covering such topics as recycling books, recovering reusable waste, creating alternatives to plastics, giving items past their use-by date a new life, protecting your home and possessions from fire, making items from clay, concrete, bone and recycled wood and creating your own fibres and clothing.

While Lizz works for the TDC as its committee secretary, democracy team, this expo was all her own doing, organised with the help of good friends and financed by herself. The expo had free entry for stall-holders and visitors and the crowd definitely exceeded last year's 200.

The Norsewood contingent, Jamie Hughes and Eva Renbjor, raising money for the next Viking Camp.

This year both CHB and TDC councils were present to promote the 4 Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose, and there were many stallholders demonstrating how to do this.

Neen Kennedy returned with her repurposed buckets good for everything like worm farms, composting and chook feeders - for which she gained a Local Hero medal in 2021 New Zealander of the Year awards.

Reap returned to teach how to make beeswax wraps as substitutes for Glad Wrap, and Norsewood's Keramikk Pottery Group displayed for sale their products from clay.

Rosi Hurring, from Pukeho Magic, offered for sale beautiful jewellery and ornaments made from leather, bone and recycled spoons while Denis Wraight, together with Scott and Helen Exeter, were selling amazing garden and indoor ornaments made from repurposed scrap metal and abandoned machinery.

Lyn Douglas had made concrete planters from discarded beanies set in cement, Kinuck Kreations had a wide array of products crafted from wool including felt poppies, scarves and handbags and Jacada Melts had fragrant soaps, candles and wax melts all from natural raw materials.

The Dannevirke Art Society and the Dannevirke Spinners and Weavers were there to demonstrate the satisfaction of being creative, while outside the Ormondville Fire Brigade sold sausages and the message about functioning fire alarms saving lives and showing the importance of being prepared when fire occurs.

Lizz was thrilled with the day, which also benefited local business and craftspeople.