Posts Tagged ‘sustainability’
Sunday, August 12th, 2012
Many years ago I won a speech competition on the subject of litter is a load of old rubbish! One of the points I made was how few rubbish bins Auckland Council seemed to provide which I felt encouraged littering. Today I am an obsessive recycler, we have two blue recycling bins, a worm farm, and I am regularly visiting op shops or the City Mission or schools with clothing, toys and books we no longer need!
An article in the Sunday Star Times caught my attention today, Welcome to the Wasteland. It’s all about how much rubbish kiwis chuck that is edible or recyclable. Curiously in a trial it reports the homes with teenage boys threw out the least amount of food!
The story says, “Of the 702,800 tonnes of organic waste that went into dumps around the country last year, by far the greatest proportion came from our kitchens.” And each year the amount increases by nearly 1 per cent. Why not worm farm, compost, or even more novel, buy less food!
Too much food and green waste is chucked. Not in my house! Every morning I feed the birds with left over rice, pasta, potato, of course bread and any fat left over from cooking or congealed is added to it. We have a wonderful range of birdlife in our city garden and every morning there seem more birds than before. The worm farm gets the vege scraps, potato peelings, broccoli stalks, even the handy towels and it makes my garden soil so rich!
Anything else the dog gets! So each week our red lidded bin goes out with perhaps only a few bags of rubbish that can’t be recycled. My neighbour counts on me so she can then fill it!
We moan about rates going up but forget to look at why. It is costing more to move our rubbish into other people’s countrysides. I can’t wait for user charges for rubbish. It’s so easy to worm farm, check out Hungry Bins for a clean and simple solution.
Any other ideas for putting out less rubbish besides consuming less?
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Tags: Denise Roche, Hungry Bin, organic waste, recycling, reuse, Sunday Star Times, sustainability, worm farm
Posted in Collaborative Consumption, Reuse and recycle | Comments Off
Monday, June 4th, 2012
I always enjoy reading my local paper, inside my NZ Herald, The Aucklander to see what great ideas other communities have. I also hope that other Community Boards might get some of these good ideas and be happy to let us in other ‘burbs’ take up of these great ideas.
I’m talking about Waitemata Local Board’s latest idea to plant fruit trees in City Parks. They have set aside $10,000 a year to pay for fruit trees to be planted in local parks. I love the idea of a comunity planting day to get it going.
The same article also has a story about fruittrees.org.nz a branch of Mt Eden Transition Town that is aiming to plant 1000 fruit trees in 2012. On its website www.fruittrees.org.nz you can donate ($30 a tree or 17 trees $500) or register and get some trees. Cityhop has previously blogged about some of the neat women behind some of the great ideas at the Mt Eden Transition town. They are pictured above. Brilliant community action working with schools and early childhood centres to bring fruit to gren spaces.
Hey, I just saw a cityhoppa has donated a tree. Love that, Gideon. I’m going to see if I can get some planted on our long grass verge. I live near the school and like the idea of the school kids being part of this.
Find out more… http://www.theaucklander.co.nz/news/fruit-trees-get-go-ahead/1400977/
Only daft bit, is Auckland Council seems to think it costs $180 – $200 each tree! Maybe it does with silly consultation. This is a great idea and I’ll be encouraging my local Board to consider it. Pass it on!
Tags: environmentally friendly, Fruit trees, Mt Eden Transition Town, Pippa Coom, sustainability, the Aucklander, Waitemata Local Board
Posted in Environment, Sustainability | Comments Off
Friday, April 6th, 2012
The garden with railway tracks still visible
The Huffington Post has come out with an interesting article that Auckland Council could learn from. The article lists 10 of the greenest cities in the United States, possibly the last place many of us would think of as green!
10 large cities have been measured on their clean energy, public transit and local food. We think of American cities as overcrowded, polluted and dirty but with clean efficient public transport, bikes, car share and other friendly infrastructure, the planting of trees, encouraging locally produced food and looking for renewable energy sources see how more progressive these US cities are to Auckland.
“Slashing greenhouse gas emissions and coming close to zero waste is no easy feat for a metropolis with a population of at least 250,000, but these 10 cities — from Boston to San Francisco — prove that sustainability is possible on the largest of scales, in good economic times and bad.”
Read about the efforts the cities have taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become more sustainable. Not surprisingly most of the cities are on the west coast.
Of more interest to me, is how seriously these American councils are taking the need to be more sustainable and the efforts they have gone to, to make it easier for their residents and ratepayers to be more eco-friendly. How have they done this? By supporting carsharing, bike sharing initiatives, creating more bike ways, green open spaces, planting more trees and much more.
Len Brown, Auckland Councillors please consider this!
Tags: Auckland car share, Auckland Council, bike sharing, carsharing, Huffington Post, Len Brown, sustainability, sustainable practices, sustainable transport
Posted in Environment, Reuse and recycle, Sustainability | Comments Off
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Cityhop loves the idea of people re-using and recycling! Our cars get re-used by lots of people every day!
The NZ Herald VIVA had a great story on the online movement finding a home for unwanted items and giving them a new purpose in life.
Many years ago, I tried to get the Auckland Regional Council to develop a website on this very topic to discourage people throwing old jam jars and other no longer wanted items into the rubbish stream. It feel on deaf ideas. Each week I take allsorts of things to childcare centres, empty boxes of cornflakes for their pretend shop; coloured paper and crinkly sounding paper for collage table and so on.
Fortunately the private sector has come up with the solution. Freecycle began in 2003 in Tucson, Arizona and is now global. Gotta love the way the internet does this! Its mantra is “changing the world one gift at a time.”
At its core are the principles of sustainability whereby one man’s junk becomes another’s treasure.
The day I looked the Drury Playcentre was looking for paint, someone wanted large cushion covers and plenty of people had things to give away from bags of boys clothing to filing cabinets and much more!
Tags: carshare, cityhop auckland, Cityhop car share, environmentally friendly, Freecycle, nz herald, recycling, reduce, sustainability, VIVA
Posted in Reuse and recycle, Sustainability | Comments Off
Monday, November 7th, 2011
The Sustainable Business Network has its first ever showcase on Wednesday 9 November. It’s a free public event to highlight the many eco-friendly and sustainable choices business and individuals have to improve the way we live.
Cityhop will have a car on display to show people how easy it is to carshare and why they might like to consider it.
Come and meet New Zealand businesses, government, community and non-profits leading the way towards a collective sustainable future.
When: Free public open day on 9th November
Where: Shed 10, Queens Wharf, Auckland
See a 2 day celebration of sustainable business, technology, innovation and lifestyles. Spend a day in the life of our sustainable city, network, connect and learn from New Zealand’s sustainable champions and social innovators.
Tags: Auckland car share, car share, carshare, Cityhop car share, sustainability, sustainable practices, sustainable transport
Posted in Collaborative Consumption, Drive less or car share, Sustainability | Comments Off
Saturday, April 30th, 2011
Before you throw out your magazines, cardboard or other so called rubbish, think about whether your local kindergarten or childcare centre could use them.
Victoria Carter, a director of Kidicorp and co-founder of Cityhop, took some Webbs auction catalogues recently to Edukids Manukau. She thought the motorbike pictures would enthral some little boy.
But the catalogue has not been cut up though. It has become a treasured book amongst the boys . When she visited recently she noticed a little boy sitting under a tree quietly relishing all the pictures of cars and bikes . She called Webbs General Manager, Neil Campbell and asked him if he had anymore.
Webbs are now sending a pile of catalogues to the centre to share amongst other centres to support literacy and learning. What a great way to recycle and see rubbish that might go out for paper recycling being given a new lease of life!
Thank you Webbs.
Victoria says her years of being involved with the kindergarten association made her appreciate that one man’s rubbish is another child’s treasure! She regularly brings what some might consider ‘rubbish’ to childcare centres for the children to turn into something.
The most recently example of this was when she had a new printer delivered for her office. Inside the box were some amazing corrugated cardboard shapes to protect the printer. Before throwing into the paper recycling bin she thought, ‘hmm, I bet children could make something amazing out of this.’
And yes, Edukids Manukau children made a city that had suffered an earthquake. The earthquake has filled so many television screens that many teachers have used the subject as a learning story to help children process and understand what happened. In this centre the up and down, uneven corrugated shapes were painted by the children and figures and objects placed around and on it to create a city that has had an earthquake. Children then talked about what to do if there was an earthquake.
How exciting to see rubbish turned into such a learning.
Tags: Edukids, environmentally friendly, Kidicorp, Kidicorp childcare, kindergarden, kindergarten, recycling, reusing, rubbish, sustainability, Victoria Carter, Webbs, Webbs auction house
Posted in Reuse and recycle, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, November 29th, 2010
Cityhop co-founder, Victoria Carter has a kereru that visits her bird bath each evening. “To see this magnificent native wood pigeon land on the edge of the bird bath is the most extraordinary sight,” she says.
“We live right on a main road but our garden is full of the most amazing bird life despite having a dog. Lucy dog has learned the morning bread thrown on the lawn is out of bounds!
The photo of the pigeon on the birdbath isn’t the best photo I’ve ever taken but proof adds Victoria! The first time it appeared we were so surprised but since then it comes back most nights for a drink!
But there’s more!
Says Victoria:
“Our garden is full of tui’s diving, squawking and chasing eachother, and we have the usual array of other birds, grey doves, sparrows, thrushes, and many more.
On Saturday I was having a coffee with a friend and to our amazement there was a rustle of wings in our magnolias and suddenly the majestic wood pigeon arrived on the bird bath and suddenly with another flourish of wings a second arrived and promptly sat in the water bathing itself!
My first thought was get a camera, where’s my phone, but they were inside and I didn’t want to frighten them off. They were startled by something else and flew into our neighbour’s frangipani tree and sucked the flower’s necter.
We felt so priviliged to be watching this amazing bird life on a main road!
Tags: carbon footprints, city gardens, Cityhop, cityhop auckland, Environment, environmentally friendly, kereru, sustainability, sustainable practices, Victoria Carter, wood pigeons
Posted in Environment, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Friday, April 16th, 2010
When you sit in a queue to get on to a motorway in Auckland it does seem as if everyone has a car. Believe it or not a lot of people don’t. More significantly it wasn’t that long ago when many people didn’t own a car.
Robin Chase, car share guru and founder of Zipcar has written an interesting essay on driving habits.
She writes 95 percent of American households own a car, and most Americans get to work by car (85 percent).
Into the late 1940s, many Americans did not own cars and probably even later in New Zealand. People lived in cities and towns, and 40 percent did not own cars but used public buses, trolleys, and trains. Soon after the war, a surge in low-cost, mass-produced houses occurred outside cities to accommodate returning soldiers and their families as well as new migrants.
But things change- in New York 100,000 people share 2000 cars. New Yrok has the lowest rate of car ownership – probably because it costs so much to own a car! The city is responding by creating safer, more liveable streets. It recently added bus lanes to streets.
Adds Robin, it is likely we will see a reduction in the number of car trips Americans take and a rise in the number of trips they take by foot, bicycle, public transit, or train. Car sharing will become common, and more people will take advantage of carpooling (many people sharing the same trip).
Read her musings for more.
Tags: carsharing, City hop, Cityhop car share, environmental, planting trees, sustainability, sustainable transport
Posted in Transport | 2 Comments »
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
The Herald had a story on households getting more cars last week. 35 new cars come onto Auckland roads every day and more and more households have more than 2 cars.
It’s so ironic that despite all the talk of global warming, climate change, air pollution we all drive more than our parents did. Robin Chase who founded Zipcar car share was right, until petrol is priced properly people will keep driving.
Cityhop car share notices that when petrol goes up people join car share!
Cars are Auckland’s main source of air pollution and the Auckland Regional Council reports that this costs us an estimated $547 million a year in health impacts.
Cityhop says, “How ironic that just as the ARC disappears into the ‘super city’ they do a report on the ills of the city. What exactly have they done in the past umpteen years to improve it?
“Do they drive fewer cars? Be great if the ARC did a report card on their own behaviour. Seen the ARC car park and the number of managers driving large cars? How many ARC staff catch the bus or the train and know how infuriating it is to be consistently late?
See the Aucklander story on Being taken for a ride. Read about how many commutes on public transport weren’t on time. Why doesn’t one of the ARC Councillors say more about it? Maybe they aren’t looking for re-election?
Tags: carsharing, City hop, Cityhop car share, environmental, planting trees, sustainability, sustainable transport
Posted in Transport | Comments Off
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
Pictured James Ure Cityhop ops manager, with the Mitsubishi electric i car, but where can you plug your car in?
Many readers will know about the citywide bike-sharing scheme that Paris is well known for. Now the city is looking at beating Boris to it and is planning another ambitious initiative, electric cars.
Paris already has a car sharing scheme with over 5000 mmebers but it is privately run ( like Cityhop) and uses traditional cars. Autolib from automobile liberte – is a large scale city-backed effort to provide only clean electric vehicles.
Says Businessweek, “Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, building on the success of the city’s popular rental bike scheme, is planning to deploy a fleet of 2,000 electric cars that customers can pick up and drop off at rental stands around the city. Another 2,000 vehicles will be offered in two dozen surrounding cities.
“The city hasn’t yet revealed how much Autolib is expected to cost, but French newspaper Le Parisien pegs the price tag at $14 million to build some 1,400 self-service rental and recharging stations around Paris and adjacent suburbs. The government will also reportedly contribute $4 million.
THE SNAG? The lack of mass produced electric cars. This is the same reason that Cityhop won’t be going electric in the short term. It is still too experimental. There are not enough connection points and the technology isn’t proven. It is way to expensive and the kinks have not been taken out. If Meridian wants to waste money on doing trials let them – or should we as our power bills keep going up?
Tags: bike share, carshare, carsharing, City hop, Cityhop, electric cars, Meridian, Paris car share, sustainability, sustainable transport
Posted in Transport | Comments Off
