Category: Uncategorized
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Post-Covid 19 :‘REPLAY’ or ‘RESET’ ?
Ko Ranginui e tū iho nei Ko Papatūānuku e takoto nei ( From a speech first prepared for Toastmasters meeting online 2 April 2020). Perhaps like many of you, I’ve been thinking this week of what New Zealand could look like post-lockdown. I’m sure we all heard the British Prime Minister talking about ‘Jenny […]
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Aaagh! ‘How is (absent loved one)?’
The first time, indeed the only time I have dyed my hair blue, I was a 39 year-old mother of 3 with an ailing husband. Two months previously, Warwick’s diagnosis with an aggressive form of leukaemia had come as a shock: without treatment he has a month to live. The seismic shift that understanding wrought […]
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Single-use Packaging : An email story.
From: Peter’s of Kensington Sent: Tuesday, 21 January 2020 5:41 pmTo: meSubject: A reminder to review your products from www.petersofkensington.com.au . A quick reminder for you, Jane Banfield. Thanks again for buying these products from www.petersofkensington.com.au. We would like to remind you that writing a review of these products will help us improve our customer satisfaction. Cristel […]
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SHOWING UP AS A ZERO WASTE GRANNY IN 2020
“Zero Waste is such a special doorway”, I explained to anyone who engaged me in conversation about my lifestyle last year. In mid-2016 when I chose to quit single-use plastic, motivated by the destruction I knew was happening in the oceans, I felt very scared. I worried that I’d miss out, make a fool of […]
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A BIKE RIDE FOR WASTEAID (with Grandpa Bear)
I’m a Zero Waste Granny so combining catching up with my grandsons, a cycling adventure and Zero Waste seems obvious! After time with my family in Vietnam, I’ll be cycling from Hanoi over the mountains to Luang Prabang in Laos, a distance of 750km, to catch up with more family members. Ever worried about piles […]
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NO BUTTS ABOUT IT
Cigarettes were part of my family’s history. My great-grandfather began a small cigarette company in England. My parents smoked. My husband smoked. I smoked. I remember the awkwardness of cigarette butts. What to do with them? Back then I didn’t know there was plastic in them, and that if dropped, birds and other marine life […]
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LETS NOT TALK ABOUT ‘THEM’
We’ve fallen into reliance on ‘them’, government and business, but as my previous blog outlined, we householders have significant power to create real change. We seem to hang back, challenged by the loneliness of embarking on a journey such as zero waste by ourselves. So, why not make it ‘easy as’ and a whole lot more fun […]
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A FAR NORTH FLOURISHING?
Its 2019 and time for new vision! Last year, though it felt odd being at university at the age of 60, I chose to become a Masters research student. I wanted to find out why mainstream waste minimisation strategies were not working and whether the national Māori zero waste organisation, Para Kore, had a more […]
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IS WASTE REALLY INEVITABLE?
Is it time to consider how we, the citizens of New Zealand have ended up with a 4000 tonne mountain of unwanted paper and plastic recycling near Thames highlighted on the News this week? [1]As an increasing number of us realise, this build-up of recycling is just one visible tip of a much larger waste eruption […]
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BOTTLE DEPOSITS – WILL OUR LOCAL MP TAKE UP THE CAUSE?
I love the way that here in NZ we have true local area representation in parliament. Hence I am approaching our local MP who last year signed his name to petitioning the government for refundable bottle deposits. Now it seems hard to contact him…. Latest email sent 10 February 2018 (correspondence as from 1st January […]
Zero Waste Granny 