sustainable solutions
Bring Back the Bottle Drives! We buy over two billion beverage containers each year writes FIONA DRUMMOND. Nearly half of these are plastic and only 35-40% are recycled, with the rest going to landfill or becoming litter. Plastic bottles spend hundreds of years polluting ecosystems. They break down into micro-plastics, harm marine wildlife and enter the food chain, affecting humans in the process. Some readers will remember the days when we received our milk in glass bottles. We put out tokens or money with the empty bottles and they were swapped for full ones. In those days glass was the preferred receptacle for most beverages and they were too precious to throw away. Until the 1970s you could get a refund for each bottle returned to the dairy. For many children, that was a solid reason to be a tidy Kiwi. They gained ‘disposable’ income and became innovative and industrious at acquiring recyclables. And they learnt entrepreneurial skills and that trash was a potential treasure. Bottle drives were popular fund-raisers for groups like the Scouts, who organised door-todoor collection of used glass bottles. Then drink companies started using disposable containers. Refunds for glass bottles stopped and many Plastic bottles can be people just threw plastic bottles and repurposed as herb planters (top) or horizontal and vertical aluminium cans away. The introduction storage containers. of supermarkets and the conversion to cartons in the 1980s meant milk delivery to the door was discontinued by the mid-1990s. So is bottle recycling over? Bottle deposit schemes (also known as container deposit schemes or CDS) are now making a comeback worldwide with around 40 countries already instigating them. A scheme will be operational in all Australian states by the end of 2018 and Germany has already achieved a 98% recycling rate on plastic bottles. The schemes are an effective way to deal with plastic pollution while supporting local communities. It’s estimated that a 10-cent recycling refund on a bottle could virtually triple New Zealand’s recycling rates – meaning less plastic on beaches, more kids off their devices collecting litter and over 2,000 new jobs. It is also possible that a nationwide scheme could save councils around $21 million per annum on recycling collection costs. 90% of local councils embrace the idea of bottle deposits and a recent survey showed 92% of New Zealanders agreed with them. So what are we waiting for? In New Zealand, there is no legislation requiring manufacturers to produce goods in recyclable packaging or to keep packaging to a minimum. Government can, however, force manufacturers to develop a life cycle stewardship scheme. It can also place a levy on beverages in containers and this levy could be passed on to the person recycling the container, creating a circular economy. The CDS movement has strong support and is led at the grassroots level by Kiwi Bottle Drive, an initiative of Cash for Containers NZ and the NZ Product Stewardship Council. It, with support from other organisations including Greenpeace, is petitioning Government for a Container Deposit Scheme and has nearly reached its target of 9000 signatures. (Readers can also lobby local and central government directly. Visit https://kiwibottledrive.nz/write-to-an-mp/.) While we wait for this to get rolling, we can reduce our hard plastic waste in many ways. Start by looking at the contents of your recycling bin with new eyes. What can I use this bottle for? Pinterest has lots
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of visual answers and many of them are simple, free and attractive. Milk bottles are a huge proportion of the plastic in our bins but can easily be developed into many items including storage systems and plant containers. Not everyone has a worm bin but at our place milk bottles are used to contain the worm tea which keeps on coming. Milk bottles can also make herb planters, hung on a fence or recycled pallet. (Retain the handle as a hook and punch a few holes in the bottle base for drainage.) They can also make handy storage containers in your shed, sewing room or kids rooms. You can also make bird feeders and even greenhouses. Other bottles can be made into self-watering planters by slicing them width-wise, putting a plant into the lid end and sitting that in the other half of the bottle from which it can draw water. It is also important to involve kids and grand-kids, teaching them we are all Self-watering planters. responsible for looking after our part of the planet. Discuss the plastic waste problem with them, take them on a regular street or beach clean up mission, encourage them to share their perceptions on pollution through words or artwork or inspire them to organise their own bottle drive. (All the resources and how-tos are on the Kiwi Bottle Drive web site.) There’s plenty of kids crafts to make with bottles too. More information is available at https://www.greenpeace.org/newzealand/act/plastic-free-nz/. Postscript: I talked about reducing and recycling soft plastic waste last month and have since come across reusable silicon container lids, promoted via social media. They come in a variety of sizes, stretch to fit all shapes, can be used on containers of all types in the fridge, microwave or oven and are a reusable alternative to cling film (which can’t be recycled). It’s another small step.
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356 West Coast Road, Glen Eden Open 6 days | Ph: 818 6526 www.clarksorganicmeats.co.nz The Fringe OCTOBER 2018
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