Waiuku business Future Post recycles soft plastic to make fence posts. Photo / Supplied
The Whanganui District Council is seeking feedback by October 4 on its draft Waste Management Plan.
I suggest you ignore the one-page glossy summary — draft waste plan, which is just asking you to sign off on their plans for kerbside recycling, organic waste collection and building waste recover ideas.
Instead, you should focus on the 30-page draft waste plan 2021 consultation document, have a good look at this and form your own ideas on what should be tackled.
I found pages 8 and 9 with the "waste hierarchy" a good place to start developing my ideas.
If we ignore the recycling, but focus on Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair and Repurpose, what good ideas can you contribute?
I have been told that the Waste Levy Fund Committee, which manages the council's levy funds from the Government, could support a repair shop/café project if a funding application was made.
I reckon they should turn this around, actually be proactive and allocate money for projects that fit these "R" at the top of the hierarchy, brainstorm what projects they want, then advertise for proposals to implement the projects.
I've come up with three possibilities to get them started, I'm sure you can add some more in your submissions.
A) Repair shop/café
Possibly a mobile workshop, stored at the WRRC and set up each month in a different suburb. Perhaps at a school or other suitable location to pull in young people who can learn skills that will set them up for a life of being a "fix it person". Levin already has a repair café with 18 volunteers donating their time and skills.
B) Making objects from soft plastic waste using 3D printers
Here in Whanganui we have manufacturers with plastic use knowledge plus lots of artists, so how about expanding a Victoria Uni project? Background information from Stuff — New Zealand does have a soft plastics recycling scheme, but struggles to process all the material it collects — meaning soft plastics have limited value, unlike glass bottles or aluminium.
A handful of companies make products from recycled soft plastics locally, such as Future Post which turns soft plastics into fence posts, but what if we could turn unrecyclable plastics and other waste into beautiful and functional homewares?
Matthew O'Hagan, 23, and Courtney Naismith, 24, are two Victoria University of Wellington students who have been doing just that. Their Utilize Project has turned discarded coffee stirrers into chandeliers, soft plastics into woven-looking baskets, and discarded fishing gear into chairs, all using 3D printers.
Collected waste was sorted and cleaned, melted down and fed into a cheese grater shredding type machine. The granulated plastic was then poured into an extruding machine, which generates a consistent spool of 3D printing filament.
Courtney Naismith also blended plastic and organic materials together. The woven-looking baskets she makes are a combination of soft plastics (from Air NZ) and harakeke.
C) Reusable cloth masks on Air Chathams flights to and from Whanganui
I reckon a small business should be funded to partner with Air Chathams to make and then wash and dry cloth masks so they can be reused.
Recently when meeting our daughter off an Auckland flight, I noticed she was one of the few passengers with a cloth reusable mask. Others were taking off their single-use masks and discarding in the waste bin provided. More of this Covid protection waste that has increased like mushroomed with masks, PPE etc, all adding to our waste stream.
We could be tackling this issue right here in Whanganui and right now!
I look forward to the council and its Waste Levy Fund Committee taking a proactive stance, tackling waste reduction at the top of the waste hierarchy and not just putting in place more trucks at the bottom of the pyramid to collect recyclables and transport them across the country to where they can be recycled.
• Graham Pearson is a Sustainable Whanganui Trust member and supports the Kai Collective.