Advocating for a world without waste

Advocating for a world without waste Jacqui Forbes interview

I n 2018, the Wakatū board set an ambitious target of zero waste by 2028 for the entire Wakatū Group. Jacqui Forbes (Ngāti Tama) has been supporting Wakatū on its pathway to this goal, in her role as kaihautū matua for Para Kore Marae Incorporated, a Māori zero-waste organisation based in Raglan. Jacqui discusses her longstanding commitment to zero waste, and some of the challenges that Wakatū may face on its journey to a low-waste future and, ultimately, zero waste.

Jacqui’s whakapapa to Wakatū is through her father, Michael Uruwhero Carter, who grew up in Taranaki, and her Te Tauihu connection is through his great grandfather from Ngāti Tama, Tākaka, Mōhua. She says she became more aware of Wakatū and her Te Tauihu whakapapa when her sister Kerensa Johnston started working for Wakatū. The purpose of Para Kore is to educate and advocate from a Māori worldview for a world without waste. The kaupapa is based on whakapapa to Papatūānuku – the concept that everything is related and interconnected. Jacqui sees the Para Kore values of whakapapa, māramatanga, kaitiakitanga, rangatiratanga and manaakitanga as being very similar to the values of Wakatū. She’s been professionally involved in the community recycling movement to reduce waste going to landfill for over 15 years, first at Xtreme Zero Waste and then at Para Kore, but her passion for this kaupapa she believes has been deeply embedded since childhood. ‘I grew up in my grandparents’ house, where thrift and reusing were strongly ingrained, so I’ve always had a natural instinct for valuing resources. Reusing and not wasting was tika, it was common sense and the norm growing up. Wasting something intrinsically doesn’t feel right to me.’

Jacqui says because they didn’t have much money, her mum, Marcia Amadio, would get maximum use out of everything – something she’d learnt to do from her own parents. ‘She’d mend sheets and towels and reuse containers and jars. Our main source of food was what we could grow in the garden and most of our kai came from our vege garden and things that would be in season or that we’d preserve, like raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, nectarines, plums, peaches, apples and tomatoes. Mum and the neighbours were always sharing veges over the fence, and all the kids roamed through the properties and ate whatever was in season.’

The other aspect to why Jacqui is involved in this work is the importance her family places on advocating for social change and people’s rights. ‘My mum is an activist, has always been politically active,’ she explains, ‘a zero-waste, plant-based, Green Party member.’ Back in the 1980s, Jacqui’s mum was involved in local leading protest groups

such as HART (Halt All Racist Tours), Treaty protests, Feilding anti-nuclear and environment protection, and feminist and gay rights.

Jacqui feels honoured to be able to use her skills and experience to contribute to Wakatū, and its goal of being good kaitiaki. In 2018 she was part of a Wakatū workshop focused on waste; it resulted in the goal of zero waste by 2028 being adopted formally by the board as part of the overall Whenua Ora strategy. Since then, she’s run workshops for Wakatū at different work sites. Part of this has been spot waste audits. This exercise helps people see what they can do to reduce what is being sent to landfill. ‘It’s a good start to show people where they are at now, and to start to think about what changes need to be made,’ says Jacqui.

An ambitious goal like zero waste takes hard work because behavioural change may be required at an individual level, and at the same time, there needs to be system-wide organisational changes, for example, around supply chains and procurement decisions.

‘A lot of people don’t understand what setting a target for zero waste means in practice,’ Jacqui explains. ‘Generally, all waste audits reveal that between 70–90 per cent of waste currently sent to landfill could be either composted, recycled or eliminated if different procurement choices were made. Wakatū is no different and the opportunity to reduce waste by more than 75 per cent is real and achievable. However, to get there, you need to have honest conversations about current levels of waste generation, along with what needs to change.’

The zero-waste target is similar to other targets such as zero harm in a health and safety context – the goal has to be zero. ‘In 2028, Wakatū may not be generating zero waste across the organisation, but that doesn’t mean that Wakatū can’t reduce its current annual waste generation by 90 per cent by 2028. Once data is collected, a real target can be set to define what success looks like in 2028 in terms of tonnes of waste generated in that year. A lowwaste future must be achieved before a zero-waste future can be achieved,’ she says.

The generation of waste is based on the paradigm of being dominant over nature, on a linear system of take – make – throwaway that places profit, GDP and economic growth at the forefront rather than an indigenous worldview of connectedness with nature. The life systems of Papatūānuku, her mauri, healthy fresh waste, biodiversity and planetary boundaries are disregarded by the current paradigm and, as Jacqui explains, we are being pushed towards a drier, hotter, more dangerous climate, with sea levels rising. The need to make big changes for the sake of our tamariki mokopuna, our whanaunga, other species, and our climate is urgent.

‘I’d encourage people to make both small and big changes at home as well as in the workplace. It’s time for the old ways – for indigenous values of recognising we are social and reciprocating, we are interdependent, we are connected to our tūpuna and our mokopuna. Through our whakapapa, our genealogy, we are deeply embedded in the web of life, related to all living and non-living things that make up the world and planet to which we belong.’ Jacqui believes that recycling in Aotearoa is currently a broken system and although the government, industry and community are all working really hard to fix it, the system is still broken. Para Kore teaches that recycling is just under landfilling and burning on the waste hierarchy, and it should be avoided as it produces waste, uses energy and pollutes. Reduce and reuse, which eliminate waste in the first place, are the preferred strategies to reach zero waste.

‘I hope that the Wakatū Whenua Ora strategy is signalling an internal paradigm shift to truly uphold the principle of kaitiakitanga. I think our tūpuna would be proud of this mahi,’ says Jacqui.

PARA KORE was established in 2010. It supports more than 435 marae, kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa, Māori organisations and events. Para Kore has a nationwide team of zero-waste educators who have interacted so far with over 300,000 people through wānanga, presentations and events. Para Kore distributes free recycling crates, wheelie bins, bilingual signage, compost bins and even chickens to participating organisations. The Para Kore programme has diverted more than 376 tonnes of waste from landfills.

.parakore.maori.nz.