Council promotes Zero Waste

Reducing the cost of rubbish to the community and the environment is the ultimate aim of a growing partnership between Thames-Coromandel District Council and local school children.

 

All 23 schools on the Peninsula have signed up to two nationwide programmes that reward native trees to schools that recycle paper and cardboard. The Paper4trees programme will help schools to not only reduce the amount of waste they produce but will give them native trees to plant as a reward.

 

The Zero Waste Education programme which consists of four 45 minute lessons for each class, is designed to educate the pupils who in turn will educate their families about reducing, reusing, recycling and composting waste as well as studying about susatainability and water use.

 

It has been made possible with funding by TCDC, the Ministry for the Environment and EERST, a national organisation that promotes sustainable practice in the home, workplace and schools.

 

“We’ve been investigating which programmes might work best for our communities and fit with the work that the Council does, and decided this was a great programme worthy of support,” said TCDC Operations Manager Greg Hampton.

 

“The Council has undertaken numerous environmental initiatives in recent years – most notably moving to kerbside recycling collections in 2003 and charging for a bag for rubbish collection several years ago. The current charge is less than a third of what it actually costs to provide the rubbish disposal service. Mr Hampton says the move toward more user-pays has resulted in some real positives from a sustainability perspective.

 

The Zero Waste and Paper4Trees programmes are implemented on behalf of the Council by ex school teacher and principal Bruce Trask of EERST and Thames-based recycling educator Rosalie Howard. Rosalie previously worked for the Council and its contractors Streetsmart promoting recycling and worm bins in schools.

 

For the Paper4trees programme each school is supplied with a free 30-litre recycling bin for every classroom, posters and rewarded with a native, locally grown, native tree, flax or grass to beautify their schools. This of course will assist with carbon uptake. Schools already recycling paper and cardboard can be rewarded for their good work with native trees donated by the programme.

 

Mr Trask says Paper4Trees is now in 1032 schools in New Zealand, with Manaia being the 1000 school to register, operating at no cost to schools. “In fact they should save money on disposal fees by having better systems in place to sort and recycle more of their waste stream.”