Every year, Waipa residents send the equivalent of 16 shipping containers full of clothes to landfills.

However, the Council's Waste Minimisation advisor Shelley Wilson says op shop bus tours offer punters the chance to check out some outlets they've never visited before - while reducing their environmental footprint and saving money.

A resident who went on a tour last year says it was a great day out and she picked up "second hand gems" and valuable tips from experts along the way.

Since then, she says she's been "inspired to do laundry and mending for a local op shop, which helps put funds back into the community".

Men also enjoy the fun as - like women - they also like collectable and vintage objects plus good-value clothes.

"In our teens we thought it was cool to dress from the Army Surplus stores and op shops - that hasn't changed" one says.

"I like jackets and am always on the hunt for a bargain.

"Eight of my 11 jackets are second-hand and I have two coats, one second-hand.

"Jeans are also good to hunt for, especially deals on Levis.

"In the vintage field, my treasures include a Levi shirt for $5 and a 1968 tie from a Kings Road, Chelsea, London fashion store owned by The Beatles for 50c." (sic)

Mounting clothes' mountains

Textiles from unwanted clothing are mounting enormously. To combat the dumping of clothes, the Council's "Slow Fashion September" contribution includes promoting sustainable fashion and offering free courses where people can get advice about how to curate a low-waste, low-cost wardrobe or take part in a sewing repair workshop.

Fast fashion impacts not only the environment but has created concerning consumer behaviour with alarming global statistics, says Wilson.

Globally:

• one in three women consider a garment "old" after one wear
• on average 80% of the items in our wardrobes are never worn
• the fashion industry is responsible for 40 million tonnes of textile items going to waste each year

"It's important we all do our part, even if it's just adding one or two new practices into our daily routines" Wilson says.

"These changes may seem small, but the collective impact is huge for our community and for passing sustainable behaviour to our kids."

Source

• NZ Herald

It was a global problem and New Zealand was no exception, with at least half of the 380,000 tonnes of imported textiles each year estimated to end up in landfill.

Mindful Fashion chief executive Jacinta Fitzgerald would love to see regulation from the government to limit that waste.

She had been tracking progress overseas, where governments were starting to take notice of the scale of the problem.

In Australia the Seamless Clothing Stewardship Scheme recommended a 4 cents per garment levy to incentivise better design, foster circular business models, and expand clothing recycling. Read more

But Bindi Chouhan and her family of seven, who generate less than five rubbish bins worth of waste per year, say that most sustainable things they do on a daily basis are mindless.

The fourth-generation Indian-Zimbabwean grew up in a micro village of extended family members, about 25 people, who lived in three houses next door to one another.

So the biggest shock Chouhan experienced upon moving to New Zealand with her parents and brother in 2003 was an introduction to convenience culture.

"There were a lot of adjustments we needed to make from living in a large family of more than twenty to being just four of us," she said.

"My mum used to cook most of the meals back in Africa, and the biggest thing she needed to readjust was the meal size.

"We would be eating leftovers for days."

In her eyes, there is a clear correlation between wealth and waste.

In Zimbabwe, the whole family ate a plant-based diet, primarily grown by Chouhan's grandmother on the property.

"My parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins were always making use of everything.

"Nothing was ever just thrown out."

Not having enough food, water, or power were real possibilities - so there was a staunch commitment to making the most of every resource.

If a tool broke, someone would find a way to fix it. If something was no longer useful, it got up or re-cycled.

"The irony is when you come into a first-world country, you think you're progressing in life- but our habits started to go backwards.

"You start imbibing the things that everyone is doing around you (like using plastic bags and ordering takeaways) and without even realising, you start living a life that is against the principles that you grew up with."

Now, Chouhan and her husband share a small cottage on a property in Titirangi, Auckland, that they built themselves.

Chouhan's mum and dad live in the main house with her brother, sister-in-law and their baby. Her mother-in-law also comes to stay for about a week out of every month, as do family friends. The household is always in flux, but always at least a headcount of seven.

Chouhan started work as a sustainability travel coordinator, acting on behalf of Auckland Transport within school communities, as well as a yoga/breathwork teacher.

Yoga is about helping people with their mental garbage, she said, so helping them with their actual garbage felt like a natural extension.

The first goal she set for her household was to reduce their kerbside rubbish bin - from going out fortnightly, to once a month.

Then she brought home a worm farm. This was not well-received, but she persisted.

The family has restarted growing their own food, something Chouhan believes is the simplest way to live a more sustainable life.

Start with herbs and the vegetables you buy the most often, she suggests, and don't do it alone. For renters, that might mean going in on a little benchtop or balcony garden with flatmates or sharing with neighbours.

Chouhan and her mum are experimental cooks. They like to take homegrown taro, curry leaves, spices and bitter gourd and figure out dishes: "This week we used broccoli leaves to make spicy rolls with chickpea flour."

Leftovers went to Chouhan's sister-in-law, who keeps them flush in lemons, limes and other fruits from her trees. Sharing and swapping produce and bulk buying keeps the grocery bills down.

Between the two houses, Chouhan estimates their weekly spend is about $100. That goes on lentils, grains and flour, the few veggies that aren't in the garden, and cheese. Continue reading

This is a worldwide problem - we can't point the finger at Thai fishermen. The west started this. The developing world justifiably yearns for its living standards and, with it, its unsustainable convenience culture.

The UK alone produces more than 170m tonnes of waste every year, much of it food packaging. While it has revolutionised the way we store and consume food, there is now so much of it that landfills can't cope. Some of it is poisonous, and some of it never degrades. It can take 450 years for some types of plastic bottle to break down; one type, PET, while recyclable, doesn't biodegrade at all. And yet only a third of plastic packaging is recycled. Indeed, as Rachelle Strauss of the UK's ZeroWasteWeek, says, we never actually throw anything "away" - it's really just put somewhere else.

But recycling is just a drop in the ocean - most of the environmental cost of our throwaway wrapping is upstream - in its manufacture. We were closer to an answer 30 years ago: what on earth happened to milkmen and bottle deposits? Now we live in an absurd age where a packet of crisps can have seven layers of wrapping. Continue reading

Source and Image:

• The Guardian, article by Dave Hall, a production journalist and editor at the Guardian.

"Our guests will benefit significantly from the change in law", she told CathNews.

"Our chefs are very creative but will welcome the opportunity to offer a greater variety of food and further improve our guests' nutrition.

"I'd call this redistribution of food a 'win-win", said Nance Thomson.

In June this year the Food Safety Minister Nikki Kay announced that a 'Good Samaritan' clause will be introduced to the Food Bill, allowing restaurants and supermarkets to donate perishable foods without the liability they currently face.

Nikki Kaye says the amendment, currently before the Select Committee, will reduce the liability of donors and better protect businesses that "give good food in good faith".

A report published Wednesday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation found that each year about a third of the food produced for human consumption worldwide is wasted.

The approximately 1.3 billion metric tons emits the equivalent of about 3.3 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases which is about twice the amount of carbon emitted from the U.S.'s transportation sector and close to twice the yearly emissions of India.

That wasted food also wastes water and the report states that about 250 cubic kilometres of ground and surface water is used each year to produce food that is ultimately wasted.

The Sister of Compassion have been running the Soup Kitchen in Wellington for more than a century. They offer daily a 'no questions asked' free breakfast and a $2 'family style' dinner.

This week the Soup Kitchen is looking for donations of milk, potatoes, canned tomatoes and eggs.

Sources

• RNZ
• Soup Kitchen
• UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (pdf)
• Image: Soup Kitchen

The organisation pointed the finger of blame at inefficiencies through the food supply chain.

Industrialised and developing countries consistently waste or lose around 660m tonnes each year, with rich countries wasting 222m tonnes. Waste by rich countries roughly equates to the entire food production of sub-Saharan Africa.

While in rich countries the wasted food is driven by consumers, the main issue for developing countries is food loss due to weak infrastructure: poor storage, processing and packaging.

Amid rising global food prices, the study says that reducing food losses in developing countries could have an immediate and significant impact on livelihoods in some of the world's poorest countries.

The report argues that reducing reliance on large supermarkets could help cut food waste. It also encourages retailers and charities to work together to distribute unsold but perfectly edible food that would otherwise go to waste.

Attention to food storage, packaging and refrigerated delivery systems were key items for poor or developing countries to focus on.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Image: Green Script