It’s not every year that I make resolutions for the year ahead.. and when I do, I can’t always remember what they were 12 months later! With 2020 fast approaching it’s time to think about some goals for the year ahead but also reflect on the year that has been. I think for 2020 my resolutions will be about prioritising time, i.e. spend time developing my te reo Māori and Farsi/ Dari language skills and spend more time with friends.
I made three distinct resolutions at the start of 2019 which I did actually remember to do something about through the year. They are rather random!
1. Do a puzzle a month: 5 out of 9 success rate (Oct- Dec traveling so not counted/ not conducive to jigsaw puzzles)
2. Read a novel and a non-fiction book a month – epic fail on the non-fiction and only 2 or 3 novels until we started traveling where I’ve read five. I am carting more around with me that I’ve collected on the trip and hope to read but time is running out!
3. Reduce our waste (i.e. landfill rubbish and recycling)- read on for details!
The first two resolutions were because I was on holiday at the time and really enjoying reading and doing puzzles. I thought I should make it a goal to do that more often – not just on holiday. My discovery of podcasts during the year combined with doing puzzles was a fabulous way to have down time. The New Yorker puzzle was my favourite – thanks for the loan Mum!
The third goal was largely because of Hannah Blumhardt and Liam Prince. Also known as the Rubbish Trip, this couple have been on the road for a couple of years, sharing their knowledge about the waste situation in New Zealand and offering practical tips and workshops based on their 4+ years of living without a rubbish bin. Twice last year Antony and I were lucky to host them when they came to Ashburton.
I remember going along to their first talk thinking- ok they live without a rubbish bin – I could possibly do that. As it was we didn’t put lots in the red bin – most of our waste was going to the yellow recycling bin and to the soft plastics recycling scheme. But then they showed us in the talk how much recycling they’d produced in those 4 years – less than what most of us would put out in a fortnight! Recycling was not the answer – it was in fact pretty low down in the waste hierarchy. I had a lot to learn!
The ‘Reducing your Household Rubbish – the Zero Waste Approach’ presentation Hannah and Liam have given up and down NZ is incredibly informative, interesting and inspiring. They research an area before doing the presentation and tailor the talk to each place – so we got some really valuable info about where to find zero waste things locally, including learning about Simply Eco – the most fabulous little zero waste shop in the triangle in Ashburton.
Through the presentation Antony and I were blown away by this couple’s lifestyle and their knowledge – also their passion for this kaupapa. Giving up paid employment to travel around the country sharing the Zero Waste message through free talks and workshops is a big sacrifice, and a real gift to us who get to know and learn from them.
Although Hannah and Liam are super conscious about decisions they make around food and consumption in general and live pretty radically, they are very down to earth and super encouraging of the small steps others make to reduce waste. One of the key points I remember from that very first talk was don’t think about what you can’t do (for me – giving up chips!) just focus on the ‘low hanging fruit’ – the easy things you can start to change.
I made a few small changes as a result of the talk but it wasn’t until their second visit to Ashburton at the start of November that I really decided to get serious about it. I loved how they said that trying to reduce waste isn’t a chore, a sacrifice… but rather they view it like a challenge or a game. So we took on that challenge!
I decided that each month this year I’d photograph what went into the bins – rubbish destined for the landfill and also our recycling. Keeping a regular photographic record like this helped inform our choices – e.g. noticing the tofu packaging in early months meant I largely stopped buying it.
There were some things I didn’t manage to capture- like all the decaying weed mat which we dug up from our garden paths and some of the rubbish created as a result of the lounge reno. We had visitors throughout the year and some of them produced a lot of rubbish- we didn’t put that in our photographic record as we could not control what they bought and threw away.
I was pretty stoked to only use 2 cans in February but I couldn’t keep to that all year. I guess in February we were eating so much produce from our garden and tomatoes were ripe we didn’t need to use canned tomatoes etc. March I thought we weren’t doing too bad either until I went to empty our rubbish into the big bin outside and saw this:
It turns out Antony had a sneaky supply of Cookie time cookies and bumper bars in his office and this was all hiding in his office bin!
As you can see it is far from ‘zero’ waste – but the point is we are doing what we can to reduce waste and have become a lot more conscious about our purchasing decisions.
Some things in the pictures were things we had in the cupboards or bathroom from the year before (e.g. in May: shampoo and soy milk) which we just used up… but won’t be replacing. There is also in most of the pictures some laminating plastic waste – that’s offcuts from resource making I do for my teaching work.
I have kept soft plastics seperate from landfill waste and stored them in the garage, waiting for the day when the softplastics scheme starts up again here. But knowing that day might never come and the scheme is not the answer, I have tried hard to reduce purchasing soft plastics this year. Easiest way is to avoid shopping at the supermarket!
I think Antony emptied the recycling into the big bin during July- before I had a chance to photograph it hence that is missing. Then at the end of September we headed overseas so didn’t think about photographing our waste then either.
We didn’t photograph the content of our bins before we started reducing, but it was definitely a lot worse! In my next blog post I’ll cover what changes we made and the key things we have done to reduce our waste.
What were your New Years Resolutions for 2019 and how did you go with them?