275 Times March 2017
Mangere community news - 275 Times
Mangere community news - 275 Times
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REDUCING RUBBISH:<br />
IT’S A FAMILY THING<br />
With the era of black<br />
bags coming to an end,<br />
some of us have been<br />
wondering how we’ll fit<br />
all our rubbish into the<br />
new red-lidded bins.<br />
Waste-minimisation expert<br />
Justine Skilling talked<br />
to one family who have<br />
already made the switch.<br />
Ane Karika-Nuku is Kaitiaki<br />
Manuhiri at the Māngere Mountain<br />
Education Centre. Born and<br />
raised in Māngere, she moved to<br />
Ōtāhuhu eight months ago with<br />
her husband and six children,<br />
who range in age from 8 to 18.<br />
Because Ōtāhuhu was part of the<br />
old Auckland City Council, residents<br />
there have been using the 120-litre<br />
red-lidded wheelie bins for 15 years.<br />
Ane's family has adapted to the<br />
new system and now they barely<br />
manage to fill their 120-litre bin<br />
with rubbish each week.<br />
I asked her how her family<br />
organises their rubbish<br />
at home and how they<br />
manage to create such a<br />
small amount of waste.<br />
Lessons from the<br />
deep South<br />
“After I finished<br />
high school in<br />
Māngere, I moved<br />
to Invercargill.<br />
My family lived<br />
there for many<br />
years before<br />
moving back.<br />
Down there,<br />
we were used<br />
to recycling and<br />
cutting down our<br />
food waste. People<br />
used their own dinner<br />
sets when they had<br />
functions, instead of<br />
plastic plates. (That’s<br />
when having six children<br />
came in handy!)<br />
Invercargill is about the size of<br />
Māngere Bridge. As well as having<br />
a recycle centre, there were dropoff<br />
points around the town for<br />
glass, cardboard and other items.<br />
Houses have big sections, so<br />
everyone grows their own food.<br />
Our food scraps went to the dogs,<br />
the farms, or back in our garden.<br />
Staying on track<br />
When we moved up here again,<br />
our children were really “grossed<br />
out” to see the rubbish bags on<br />
Māngere streets. They wondered<br />
how such small houses could create<br />
so much rubbish. We got a bit lazy<br />
at first too, as it was cheaper to buy<br />
packaged food in the supermarket.<br />
We had eight people living in the<br />
main house and another family<br />
out the back, and each week we<br />
put out two or three black sacks.<br />
When we moved to<br />
Ōtāhuhu, we had to<br />
adjust again and<br />
remember how we<br />
used to do things in<br />
the South Island.<br />
Finding room to grow<br />
We live in a Housing NZ house, so<br />
we can’t have a garden, but we grow<br />
things in containers, and we have<br />
a plot at the Māngere Mountain<br />
Education Centre community garden.<br />
We collect our food scraps and<br />
bring them to our plot to compost.<br />
“IT’S POSSIBLE TO HAVE<br />
BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN SPACES<br />
TO PLAY AND SWIM IN,<br />
IF WE LOOK AFTER<br />
WHAT’S AROUND US.”<br />
Getting the kids involved<br />
Our kids bought pretty bins from the<br />
supermarket and labelled them for<br />
recycling, soft plastics, food scraps,<br />
etc. They squash down cardboard<br />
boxes and tie them together, and<br />
rinse and squash plastic bottles before<br />
putting them in the recycle bin.<br />
We’re not buying as much packaged<br />
food as we used to in Māngere. The<br />
kids prefer homecooked<br />
meals, so<br />
takeaways are an<br />
occasional<br />
treat.<br />
4<br />
Waste-reduction champs:<br />
Ane Karika-Nuku's family of<br />
eight barely fill their red-lidded<br />
rubbish bin each week.