Resources



Resources for participants

Contents (press CTRL and left-click to jump to section)

Ecological Footprinting 1

Waste – reduce, reuse and recycle 2

Transport 2

Energy & housing 2

Garden 2

Water 2

Environmental 2

Food 2

Goods & services 2

General/community 2

Ecological Footprinting

The ecological footprint quiz being used for the current round Kāpiti Coast’s Greenest Street competition is being developed by The New Zealand Footprint Project, a collaboration between Otago Polytechnic and Victoria University. The three-year project seeks to better understand the ecological footprint of New Zealand communities and develop knowledge and tools specific to the NZ situation.

The 2010/11 round of the competition used a quiz from the Center for Sustainable Economy that can be found here[pic]. This quiz was chosen from the many we looked at due to its breadth (looking at environmental impact, not just carbon emissions) and ability to be adjusted for NZ.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) Victoria, Australia has some simple notes and suggestions [pic]to accompany their personal Ecological Footprint quiz. They also worked with Global Footprint Network to develop a documentary film about ecological footprinting. This resource, "The Ecological Footprint: Accounting for a Small Planet" (32 mins), can be downloaded[pic].

If you want to find out more about footprinting, Global Footprint Network is a leading international Ecological Footprint body. A not-for-profit organisation, they seek to develop the science behind footprinting and the definitions and standards that are applied.

Waste – reduce, reuse and recycle

When thinking about how to reduce your rubbish, you may want to start with a waste audit. This will give you an idea of what you are throwing out and thus the best options for diverting it from landfill. If you’d like to do your own waste audit at home, the Council has a waste audit kit (tarpaulin, bins and scales) available - get in touch with Simon Calcinai, the Waste Minimisation Officer, to book it. Audit instructions and a record form can be found on the Zerowaste website.

Generally, around 40% of [pic]household waste going to landfill is kitchen waste. Composting, worm-farms and ‘effective microorganisms’ (e.g. bokashi, a variety of yeast) are all good ways of turning this waste into a resource:

▪ Council’s Green Gardener will be able to support you with setting up these systems. We also have a ‘Nutrient Recycling’ booklet on the Council website.

▪ Create Your Own Eden covers three elements of composting: traditional composting using a heap or bin; vermiculture or worm farming; and bokashi.

▪ You can see what books the library holds by searching their online catalogue [pic]or taking a look at their Sustainable Living book list next time you’re in there.

Find out everything you need to know about rubbish and recycling services in Kāpiti, get some ideas for reducing your daily waste, and have a look at the laws and strategies that exist for waste on the Council’s website. You can also find out what happens to your kerbside recycling here.

If you have a small quantity of household hazardous waste (1 kg or 1 litre per person) you can drop it off at Otaihanga Transfer Station for a fee of $ 35. Quantities over 1 kg/litre must be referred to a specialist collector (see the hazardous waste collector section of the Yellow Pages). Examples of household hazardous waste include cleaning solutions, pesticides, pool chemicals, antifreeze, or used batteries.

If you have empty, triple-rinsed agrichemical containers, they can be dropped off at the Ōtaki Transfer Station on the first Friday of the month between 10 am and 2 pm. This collection is run by Agrecovery and is only available for chemicals produced by an Agrecovery participant. For more information refer to the Agrecovery website.

Items that can’t go in your kerbside recycling but can be taken to Kāpiti’s Transfer Stations for re-use, recovery or disposal: 

▪ Glass items like a broken mirror, window glass or broken pyrex bowls (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

▪ Empty paint tins (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

▪ Protective (white) polystyrene packaging (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

▪ Waste oils (Otaihanga, Ōtaki, Waikanae) for a charge of .50c a litre.

▪ Scrap metal (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

▪ Batteries, including car batteries (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

▪ Paint (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

▪ TVs (no longer accepted as general waste) for a charge of $20 to cover the cost of transport to an e-waste recycler and the recycling itself (Otaihanga, Ōtaki)

Note that Council’s Waste Reduction Fund for Community Groups has grants of up to $5,000 available for groups of 5 or more households who want to undertake projects that will reduce waste. Applications for 2011 close on 3 November 2011. More information can be found here.

A source of good ideas for reducing your rubbish is Rubbish Free.[pic] In 2008 Waveney Warth & Matthew Luxon decided to try and avoid contributing to the growing rubbish problem by setting themselves a challenge of living for a year without sending anything to landfill. The average Kiwi couple sends 1.5 tons of rubbish to landfill every year - they sent 2kg! They have learnt a lot about living a rubbish free lifestyle and have set up a website to pool knowledge. The site has an alphabetic guide and a store selling items that they found useful.

There are some interesting websites that look at reusing and reducing waste, including:

▪ 25 Easy Steps to Sustainability, a publication by the Ministry for the Environment has a section on rubbish.

▪ Funk & Flash from Junk & Trash – an Ooooby (Out of Our Own Backyards) group focused on creative recycling ideas for gardens, porches and patios (their motto: "Make Gardens - Not Landfills"!).

▪ Zerowaste New Zealand  Zero Waste New Zealand Limited is a waste minimisation consultancy, established in 2005 as a charitable company to financially support the Zero Waste Trust. While the Trust ceased to exist in early 2010, Zero Waste New Zealand Limited remains as a charitable company to assist people with the implementation of Zero Waste. Resources on their site include instructions for making your next event zerowaste, encouraging zerowaste schools, and instructions for making a wormfarm.

▪ Waitakere District Council’s Guide to Avoiding Construction Waste is here.

▪ The Ministry for the Environment has some more technical resources on resource efficiency issues[pic]: waste, sustainability and sustainable industry. These include national strategies, codes of practice, issue papers and data. This is also a good place to look for information on hazardous waste disposal and special wastes:

– batteries,

– used oil,

– tyres,

– agrichemicals,

– electrical and electronic equipment (e-waste),

– household lighting.

Disposable versus reusable nappies are a topic of much debate. A summary can be found at Zerowaste New Zealand Trust. Have a look here for an update of a report by the United Kingdom Environmental Protection Agency. The report concluded that reusable nappies can be more environmentally friendly than disposable ones, but it’s how you wash and dry your reusable nappies that make the difference.

You may want to get involved with Seaweek. [pic]Run by the NZ Association for Environmental Education from 3 to 11 March 2012, you can sign up to get rubbish bags and gloves for a local beach clean.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff, the short film that started the series, is a 20-minute look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. It has been followed by The Story of Electronics, The Story of Cosmetics and The Story of Bottled Water, (and The Story of Cap and Trade). All are downloadable from here.

Packaging is an obvious source of rubbish in most homes – the plastic, paper and cardboard that transport goods into our home then go straight into the rubbish or recycling. Reusable grocery bags are a good way of reducing the number of plastic bags that we use, as are cloth bags for fruit, vegetables and dried goods. Rubbish Free sells reusable grocery and produce bags. They also have rubbish free shopping kits and full rubbish free kits. Or you can make your own bags with from the range of over 50 free patterns found here (patterns are divided into sew, knit and crochet, according to your crafty bent).

Have a look at the Dlish website for a review of reusable coffee cups available in NZ for the eco-minded caffeine addict.

What can you do with stuff that’s too good to throw away? Or you need something, but want to try avoiding buying new?

▪ Otaihanga Resource Recovery Facility has a shop where you can drop household goods for resale (note that they don’t take electrical goods). Addresses and opening hours can be found here. Trash Palace is a similar initiative in Broken Hill Road, Porirua.

▪ Waikanae Kapiti Freecycle, Wellington Freecycle and Wellington Re-Cycle are open all who want to “recycle” that special something rather than throw it away. Whether it’s a chair, a fax machine, piano or an old door, feel free to post it. Or maybe you’re looking to acquire something yourself!

▪ Zoove is a bit like Trade Me, but no money changes hands. You get five credits when you sign up and you can list stuff that you want to get rid of, or use your credits to pick up stuff that other people are listing – up to five items a month. Each month you get another five credits, to a maximum of forty credits. This one could appeal if you don’t want to deal with the Yahoo! Groups system used by Freecycle. You can also see photos of items and close the listing once you’ve chosen a recipient so there’s no more emails asking about it.

Urban farming——the story of about 20 families who have purposefully

uprooted from out of comfortable suburban homes and moved into one of the worst neighborhoods in Kansas

City. Each bought homes within a 5 block radius of each other and set about finding another way of living for the

youth and the poor. Driven by concern about what passed as food and growing economic uncertainty, they have set

about like mad scientists testing out innovative ideas from all around world and making them work in one of the

most blighted neighborhoods in the US. Everything from urban fish farming to alternate energy is documented here

in a series of video clips.

▪

Transport

Kapiti Coast District Libraries cover transport in their Sustainable Living book list, which you can pick up a copy of at the library.

In the last ten years the number of New Zealand’s primary school children driven to school by car has nearly doubled. Brent Cherry, School Travel Planning Coordinator at Kapiti Coast District Council, works with schools and communities to develop safe, active and sustainable travel plans for schools. Surveys are conducted with students and households to explore the strengths, limitations and hazards for sustainable transport. A plan is then developed that interweaves the Council, school and community in remedying problems and developing sustainable alternatives including walking, cycling, skateboarding, scootering, carpooling and public transport. Click here to email Brent or phone 04-296 4772.

Got kids who are keen to get themselves to school? NZTA have some tips for keeping them safe on skates, scooters and skateboards. And there’s lots of downloadable resources at Feet First, the Walking School Bus website, including the cyclist road code, cyclist, rail and pedestrian safety booklets, and posters.

Start thinking about how you and your kids might want to get involved with Movin’March, 26-30 March 2012. An initiative of GWRC, Movin’March is about “celebrating our region’s safe and sustainable travel champions – all the children who walk, wheel and bus to and from school! Movin’March 2012 is all about students gaining the skills they need to keep safe when walking and cycling to school - and celebrating their journeys!” There’s a range of resources for schools and a Champion Challenge which gives students and parents a simple safety skills checklist to complete together at home. Students who return at least one of the checklists completed “qualify” as Movin’March Champions!

[pic]Let’s Carpool is Greater Wellington Regional Council’s online carpooling tool for individuals. NZTA also have a large number of carpooling resources here. These are aimed at businesses and range from guidelines for setting up a carpooling scheme to brochures for employers and employees, to posters, parking space stencils and radio jingles (!).

NZTA have a range of resources for businesses looking to travel smarter:

▪ Travelling for business;

▪ Alternatives to business travel;

▪ Workplace travel plans; and

▪ Getting to and from work.

GWRC offer an online Cycling and Walking Journey Planner. Once you’ve entered your starting point and destination it will automatically map a course for you that avoids unnecessary hills. You'll find out how long your journey will take, how hilly the trip is, get an estimate of how many calories you'll burn and what it would cost to have driven! Detailed route directions are provided in a print or email friendly format and the journey planner will even give you the location of bike racks, drinking fountains, toilets, street lights and points of interest such as parks.

Kapiti Coast District Council has produced a map of the cycleways, walkways and bridleways in our district. Copies are available from the Council service centres. You can also find a Kapiti Coastal Cycle Routes Map here and a Short Walks and Picnic Spots map here.

Metlink offer lots of resources for using public transport, including:

▪ bus, train and ferry timetables;

▪ journey planners using more than one mode of transport;

▪ service updates; and

▪ ticket and fare information.

Bike Wise have some great cyclist resources[pic]. They are the organizers of Bike Wise Month in February 2011, which includes Go By Bike Day on 1 February (a Street activity?) and a Mayoral Challenge. Registrations for Go By Bike Day are open from 7 November 2011. The bikes and riding section of their site is being developed gradually but has some good resources on cycle safety, cycle maps, family riding, skills and training, and cycle rules.

If you’re really serious about running, cycling and walking, you can get a personalized fitness plan and nutrition advice at ACC’s Active Smart site. [pic]

Tips for driving fuel efficiently can be found on NZTA’s website or in EECA’s action sheet, Saving Energy in Business: Transport, which is here.

EECA have a fact sheet on biofuels.

If you’re looking at buying a car, or want to find out how your current vehicle rates for fuel economy, safety ratings and features, CO2 emissions and pollutants, have a look at the Rightcar website

Kapiti Cycling Incorporated have some good information on places you can ride, groups to get involved with depending on your preferred style (BMX, road, MTB) and regular group rides.

Did you know your bike can travel on the for free (space permitting)? Details of Metlink’s policy can be found here. If you’re unsure about negotiating the madness of Wellington once you get there or want to cycle all the way (!), maybe you could use GWRC’s website to find a bike buddy to show you the routes and tricks.

Information and tools on teleworking can be found here. Teleworking is a flexible alternative that helps reduce reliance on travel (and thereby the costs of road and transport networks).

Carbon offsetting…hmmm. For a summary of the issues, have a look at Carbon 101 in Good magazine. If you are keen to offset your flight emissions, you can do it at the same time as you purchase your ticket with many airlines, including Air New Zealand and Pacific Blue. Or you could use Landcare Research’s travel calculator and offset option here. To offset your daily travel, you need to use the household calculator that looks at your home energy use, private transport, public transport, long distance travel, waste and recycling.

Energy & housing

Richard Morrison is Council’s Eco-Design Advisor. He offers a range of free services, including home eco-audits where he will visit your home and give advice for making it warmer, drier and healthier; phone advice; proposed plan consultation; and group talks. Contact him by email or on 04-296 4651.

Kapiti Coast District Libraries’ Sustainable Living book list covers sustainable architecture in the Home/Health section – you can pick up a copy from the library. Energy-specific issues are in the Energy section.

Learn more about being energy-efficient with EECA:

▪ Appliances - When it's time to replace your old appliances choosing more efficient models is a good way to save on your appliance electricity bill. You can also save money by using your appliances sensibly and switching them off when you aren't using them. EECA have a list of Energy Star rated products by category, e.g. dishwashers, washing machines. Priceme is a good tool when it comes to actually shopping for appliances – once you choose the type of appliance you can narrow your search by Energy Star / Water Star rating, brand, price etc.

▪ Building and renovating – incorporating energy efficiency into your home’s design.

▪ Your home in general - Many homes in New Zealand waste energy. They are often poorly laid out and constructed, have inadequate insulation, and consequently, use a lot of energy to heat them adequately. As a result of this they are frequently underheated and unhealthy. There are, however, many things you can do to make your home warmer, healthier and more energy efficient. Issues covered are insulation, heating, dampness, ventilation, hot water and lighting.

Smarter Homes is the Department of Building and Housing’s website. It was created as a joint initiative bbtween the Department, the Ministry for the Environment, Consumer, Beacon Pathway Ltd and URS, with assistance from a number of other organisations to provide clear, independent, factual information about sustainable home design, building and lifestyle options. Set aside some time to have a look around this site as there’s a lot in here: design, energy, water, siting and landscaping, materials, and construction. Their Guide to $marter Insulation and Guide to a $marter Home are well worth a look and can be ordered as a hardcopy through their website.

Level has been developed for the construction industry by BRANZ Ltd, the independent research, testing, consulting and information company. Level aims to help you design and build homes which have less impact on the environment and are healthier, more comfortable, and have lower running costs. Covers site analysis and site use, passive design, water, material use, energy, wet areas, and health and safety.

If you’re interested in generating your own energy, EECA’s website is excellent:

▪ Generating your own energy

▪ Distributed energy generation: generating electricity from small-scale systems and using it on-site or nearby. Distributed generation projects are hooked up to the local distribution network, so they can still get electricity from the network when they need it, or can export excess electricity into the network.

▪ Stand-alone power systems: also known as off-grid generation, these are similar to distributed generation systems but are not connected to the electricity network.

▪ A paper from 2009 briefly reviewing the unit costs for a range of small scale electricity generation technologies up to 15 MW in capacity can be found here.

▪ Small wind turbines

▪ Solar electricity (photovoltaics)

▪ Micro-hydro turbines

▪ Bio-energy (biogas, wood energy, biofuels)

▪ Renewable Energy Services directory (technology providers, professional services, and energy sales and financial services)

Sustainable Energy Association New Zealand (SEANZ) is the industry organisation promoting micro-scale renewable energy technologies, with information on domestic scale distributed generation. They also provide a renewable energy business directory, a Standards Guide for Renewable Energy, a distributed generation metering guide and copies of NIWA’s irradiance and wind maps of New Zealand.

EECA’s Guide to buying solar water heating is here.

EECA offer Energywise subsidies for insulation, solar or heat pump water heating and clean, efficient heating. Subsidies vary from $500 to $1200. Greater Wellington Regional Council is also participating in the scheme by providing financial assistance of up to $2,600 per ratepayer to help fund the remaining cost of home insulation and clean heating over and above the grant provided by EECA. This can be repaid by way of a targeted rate over a 9-year period. Information on Greater Wellington's offer can be found here.

Council can help arrange discounts on bulk purchases of eco materials: draft-stops, cylinder wraps; draft strips etc. Contact Stacey at munities@t.nz if your street is interested in doing this.

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are also known as CFL’s or energy-saver lightbulbs. Consumer magazine tested 19 different models to find out which shone brightest and lasted longest. Their advice for choosing the right CFL can be found here, along with the link to their report. Rightlight have some interesting figures about the benefits – financial and environmental – of using these type of bulbs.

If you are concerned by reports about the mercury content in this type of bulb, a clean-up guide can be found here. Remember that these bulbs only release mercury if they are broken. See Ecobulb for information specific to the bulbs the Council has been giving away to Kāpiti residents – the mercury in these is an amalgam which is solid at room temperature and trapped in the end of the tube.

If you have unbroken bulbs to dispose of in Kāpiti they can then be dropped off at the Council Service Centres or libraries for recycling. In other areas, Rightlight suggest the following:

• Ask your local council if they operate a hazardous waste service. Some offer a drop-off service at the transfer station, such as Wellington City Council and Christchurch City Council. Others offer an annual hazardous waste collection, like Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay and Palmerston North. Check out t.nz for more information.

• Alternatively, visit the Interwaste website (Interwaste is a NZ company specialising in hazardous waste disposal and recycling) and buy a prepaid box to fill and send then in to be recycled.

The Rightlight website has information about all the energy-efficient lightbulbs available and their relative merits: compact fluroscents (CFLs), halogen spotlights, new-generation halogens, linear fluorescent tubes, light-emmitting diodes (LEDs), and specialist halogen bulbs.

CarboNZero is a NZ carbon calculator created by Landcare Research – you can work out your emissions for your household, your travel or your small enterprise. They also offer the option of offsetting your emissions.

Greentech New Zealand is an online shop for energy-saving solutions like solar panel kitsets and components, solar-powered spotlights and shed lights, and wind turbine kits. They also have a useful list of energy-saving tips.

Going wider than our own homes, Alex Steffen tackles the subject of urban design, asking “How can cities help save the future?” He shows some cool neighborhood-based green projects that expand our access to things we want and need -- while reducing the time we spend in cars.

Garden

Hannah Zwartz is the Council’s Green Gardener. She offers a range of services to help you garden sustainably and waterwise.

Community Visits - get together five or more friends or neighbours for FREE general advice on your garden situation and conditions including planting, shelter, irrigation, fruit trees, rainwater/greywater systems or other gardening issues.

Workshops - formal 2-hour workshops are available on a range of topics (other workshops aside from those listed can also be developed, e.g. shelter).

– Nutrient recycling (compost, worm farming and liquid manure)

– Building a biodigester: What do you do with pernicious weeds that can't be composted (like wandering willie, convolvulus, oxalis and kikuyu)? Find out how to liquefy them and transform them into mineral-rich fertiliser using a simple double-barrelled bio-digester made from two plastic drums.

– Crop rotation and companion planting

– Seed sowing

– Basic permaculture design

– Basic seed saving (best in autumn)

– Green manures, mulch and no-dig (usually autumn)

– Fruit pruning/companions (winter)

– Top ten herbs for Kāpiti

– Seasonal crops (i.e. spring - greens, peas; summer - tomatoes, pumpkins etc; autumn - broad beans and peas; winter - garlic)

– Growing plants from cuttings

– Natural pest and disease control

– Growing great citrus

Online advice is available through the Council website, including downloadable information sheets on fruit trees, rainwater, greywater, no-dig gardens, herb spirals, pests, and nutrient recycling.

Phone advice is free - call the Council Service Centre on 296 4700 or 0800 486 486.

Regular slots in the Observer every second Thursday, on Beach FM 106.3 every second Thursday at 11.30am, and in the e-bulletin On To It (subscribe through the Council website).

Kāpiti Coast District Libraries’ Sustainable Living book list has a permaculture section that covers lots of aspects of gardening. Pick up a copy at your library.

Get Growing is an initiative of New Zealand Gardener editor, Lynda Hallinan. A free email newsletter that comes out every Friday, it includes hints, tips and weekend tasks - whether you're a beginner gardener or an expert grower. It also includes competitions, recipes, events, requests for particular plants or seeds and answers to your vege growing questions. To receive Get Growing, sign up via the NZ Gardener website or send an email to getgrowing@nzgardener.co.nz. An archive of past newsletters can be found on the NZ Gardener website.

Edible Backyard is Kath Irvine’s website. She teaches permaculture design and edible gardening to schools and community groups and promotes a series of workshops run from her home garden in Ohau. She also puts out a blog for gardening tips, recipes and news and a newsletter, both of which you can subscribe to via her website.

New Zealand Gardener also has some great articles available for download here. These include gardening advice, and their regular columns on herbs, regional gardening and bugs.

Edible Garden has a great catalogue of fruit trees with very helpful information on each. They are stockists of Koanga heritage varieties.

OOOOBY (Out Of Our Own Backyards) is an online community for (mostly) New Zeaalnders who are interested in growing and eating local food. Has lots of interest /discussion groups that you can join like Poultry in Urbania, Growing By the Moon, Seed Collecting, Worm Farming, Seasonal Recipes, Companion Planting, Organic Gardening for Beginners, Preserving, Herbs, Pruning….

Create Your Own Eden covers three elements of composting: traditional composting using a heap or bin; vermiculture or wormfarming; and Bokashi (aka. Effective Microorgansisms).

Love Plant Life is a NZ (Kāpiti, even!) blog devoted to useful plants (and gentle humour) – “the kinds we love because they sustain our life. Plants provide all the materials we need to live and do so in the cleanest and greenest of ways”.

GardenGrow have a handy calendar of what to plant and when. You can choose your NZ climate zone and see what can be planted now – in trays or direct – and when it will be ready for harvest, or look up individual plant species to find the growing directions for your climate zone.

Koanga Institute has been collecting and growing old fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers for 25 years to conserve the seed. They are particularly focused on New Zealand heirlooms. The Institute is a membership-based organization: for $30/35 a year members receive Spring and Autumn catalogues and two free packets of seeds.

In addition to selling seeds through their shop, they have a range of interesting articles, a useful moon calendar with weekly ideas and planting and other garden tasks, and various gardening and food preparation tools that support an older, simpler way of doing things.

Good Magazine has a guide to community gardens across NZ, including links to websites or pdf information where available. There’s bound to be something of interest for those who want to look at gardening as a street or setting up a community orchard.

American Community Gardening Association has many printable articles and tip sheets covering different topics related to community gardening, garden organising, general gardening and horticulture.

Grow Sheffield: Urban Food Growing Landscapes is an active network of individuals and groups promoting urban organic food growing. Beautiful and interesting site with an artistic bent, in particular:

▪ ALLOTMENT SOUP is an annual creative and artistic harvest celebration. The aim of the event is to celebrate food growing and allotment culture.

▪ ABUNDANCE is a project to harvest the seasonal glut of local fruit. In 2009 they produced the Handbook as a guide to community urban harvesting.

If you’re not already inspired by the idea of harvesting neighbourhood fruit for community use in New Zealand, see the Herald’s article about Di Cellier’s scheme. Her idea to pick excess fruit for foodbanks and families in need has earned her a nomination for NZ Gardener of the Year 2011. And Community Fruit Wellington have taken her challenge and run with it, setting up a Facebook page.

Incredible Edible Todmorden aims to increase the amount of local food grown and eaten in the town. Businesses, schools, farmers and the community are all involved. Projects include transforming public flower beds into community herb gardens and vegetable patches, community orchards, working with public bodies - like the fire station and churches – to use their land, a campaign to encourage the production and consumption of local eggs, and supporting local growers and farmers. Go here to hear Chris Laidlaw interview one of the projects’ founders for Radio New Zealand’s Ideas programme on 9 May 2010 (there’s also a link to an interview with one of the founders of the Owhiro Bay Community Garden).

Best Gardening is quite an old-style gardening website, but has some useful stuff in the ‘Organic’ section.

Organic Pathways provide an online guide and marketplace for organics in New Zealand. Includes a gardening page with a broad range of articles.

Permaculture in New Zealand has various forums and a resources page with reading materials and links to other permaculture sites in NZ and overseas.

Homegrown is an American site, similar to NZ’s OOOOBY, for “folks who celebrate the “culture” in agriculture and share skills like growing, cooking and food preservation.”

Kings Seeds is an online seed shop with a huge range that includes some organic seed, sprouting seeds, green mulches etc.

Levin Soil & Health Association is the local branch of Organic NZ. They organise field trips and guest speakers and share their knowledge of organic gardening and sustainable living to encourage others to live more organically. See website for contact details.

Soil and Health Library (not affiliated with the NZ organisation) provides free e-books, mainly about holistic agriculture, holistic health and self-sufficient homestead living. As the books need to be out of print to be made publicly available, there is quite of bit of old and obscure content, but it’s a great place to rummage for titles you’re unlikely to find anywhere else.

Organic Garden Calendar for Kapiti to Manawatu, by Kath Irvine, is a month-by-month guide to organic gardening in our area. Published by the Levin Branch of the Soil & Health Association, it is available from Commonsense Organics in Paraparaumu or through Levin Soil & Health.

Dirt Doctor have good step-by-step photo guides on composting, seed-raising, starting a new garden and building a biodigester

The Royal Horticultural Society provides basic, clear information on fruit pruning and growing all types of plants (be aware that this is a northern hemisphere site so adjust the advice to suit our climate).

You Grow Girl is a great blog focussed on growing organic in less-than-ideal urban spaces – note that it’s from Toronto, so again the seasons are reversed.

Youtube is a great source of all kinds of DIY instructionals, including building raised beds and chicken houses.

If you’re interested in keeping bees, the National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand is a good place to start for advice and finding a local group. The Wellington Beekeepers’ Association have their website here.

Want to do your bit for biodiversity in your own backyard? There’s some interesting and good-looking factsheets and posters you can download:

▪ Gardening for lizards in the lower North Island (DOC factsheet)

▪ Tree planting for native birds in the lower North Island (DOC factsheet)

▪ Land snails from the Wellington region (DOC poster)

▪ Weta motel design (DOC)

▪ Native planting for streamsides in Wellington conservancy (DOC factsheet)

▪ Wellington Regional Native Plant Guide (GWRC booklet) - tells how you can use native plants which are ecologically appropriate for your area to help our native ecosystems survive and flourish, and at the same time beautify your garden.

Water

Ben Thompson, Council’s Water Use Coordinator, can offer advice and workshops on various subjects relating to water conservation:

▪ Rain collection systems, including resurrecting in-ground concrete tanks if you have them;

▪ Installing a recycled rainbarrel;

▪ Greywater systems: turning your washing machine into a greywater irrigation powerhouse.

Contact him on 04-296 4616 or by email.

Council also offers free Green Plumber services - changing washers on most showers, taps and toilets (not ceramic washers). Call 04-296 4700 to book a visit.

Council’s Green Gardener, Hannah Zwartz, offers a range of services to help you garden sustainably and waterwise:

▪ General advice given during community visits covers topics like using rainwater and greywater, irrigation systems, drought-proofing your garden, suitable plants for your local conditions and climate, and mulching.

▪ Downloadable information sheets on rainwater and greywater can be found on the Council website.

▪ To contact Hannah for phone advice or to organize a free community visit, call the Council Service Centre on 296 4700 or 0800 486 486.

Council’s Greywater Suitability Maps can be found here:

▪ Waikanae to Paekakariki

▪ Otaki

Kapiti Coast District Libraries’ Sustainable Living book list covers low-water gardening and grey-water in the Home/Health section. Pick up a copy when you next visit the library.

Oasis Designs: Original designs for living better, cheaper, & more ecologically since 1980 have lots of information on using rainwater and greywater. Has a particular focus on low-tech DIY ecological systems.

Smarter Homes, the Department of Building and Housing’s website, has a section on water. Covers easy ways to save water, reducing water flow, catching and using rainwater, outdoor water use, onsite sewage systems, and re-using greywater. See their top tips for saving water, divided into free, low-cost and worthwhile investments, here.

Level, BRANZ’s website for the construction industry, also has a section on water which includes links to the water-relevant parts of the NZ Building Code and NZ Standards. Their focus is on designing, building and renovating homes that use water efficiently for range of reasons:

▪ to help keep water and wastewater infrastructure costs down,

▪ to provide ongoing economic benefits,

▪ to make the home better equipped to cope with prolonged droughts or short intense storms, and

▪ to benefit the environment by, for example, reducing the need to draw more water from rivers and waterways, and reducing the need to build new infrastructure for supply and disposal.

You can also find links to the BRANZ publications, Water, and Plumbing (note that these are $40.95 each).

Environmental

Rob Cross and Matt Ward are Council’s biodiversity team. They can offer you advice on pest animal and weed control and planting natives.

▪ If you want to plant natives over the winter as a group, contact Rob on 04-296 4653 or email him. Planting locally-sourced natives helps the environment. The booklet Growing Native Plants in Kapiti is a useful source of local information about planting in local conditions and is available from Council offices.

▪ Rob also administers the Council’s Heritage Strategy which assists private landowners to protect and manage the ecologically precious parts of their property, such as native bush and wetlands. Funding is available for fencing, pest animal and weed control, planting, the development of management plans and covenanting. Projects are funded on a cost sharing basis, with Council contributing up to $5,000.

▪ Assistance with fencing ecological sites and riparian margins is available through the Heritage and Riparian Funds.

▪ Though the control of pest animals and noxious environmental weeds is the responsibility of Greater Wellington Regional Council, Rob can provide advice on pest animal and weed control in natural areas or around Ecological Sites. You can find useful information about pest animals on DOC’s website too.

▪ Matt is Council’s eco-sourcing expert. He is also available to support community conservation and restoration groups in practical ways, ranging from site-specific advice to hard labour and proving eco-sourced seed.

Greater Wellington Regional Council has information on our regional parks and forests, including maps, directions, and information on events, activities and camping. They also have regular weed swap events and run a great summer programme of guided walks, tramps and family days – watch their website for details. Information on DOC-managed parks in our region can be found here.

Extensive information on native plants can be found on the web and through the library. Websites worth a look are:

▪ The Green Toolbox [pic]is a free Windows-based software package to help users choose and evaluate plants for a variety of land management applications, throughout New Zealand.

▪ New Zealand Plant Conservation Network provides a huge amount of information about New Zealand’s flora, native and exotic, including a long list of species by their Latin and common names and their status.

If weeds are your problem, have a look at:

▪ Landcare Research’s list of useful websites

▪ Weedbusters is another great site which has an A-Z of weeds (and suggestions for their control).

▪ The library holds copies of the Department of Conservation’s book, Plant Me Instead, which not only helps to identify and control unwanted weeds but suggests attractive, non-invasive alternatives (look here for more information).

KCC (Kiwi Conservation Club), junior Forest & Bird, is a membership-based group for kids who are “wild about nature”. A $19 annual subscription gives members a Wild Things magazine five times a year and the chance to take part in outdoor trips and activities in the Wellington region. The website also has some games, quizzes, activity ideas and information about our wildlife and wild places.

Landcare Research has some good family-friendly resources:

▪ They organise an annual Bioblitz – a 24-hour race to count as many species as possible in a large urban area. If you were really keen, you could adapt this idea for your street (or 2011’s may be in Wellington), but you may just want to have a look at the posters that can be downloaded from here.

▪ They also collaborate with Forest & Bird and the Ornithological Society to monitor the distribution and population trends of garden birds through their annual Garden Bird Survey. This is open to all (dates for 2012 unknown at this stage)

▪ And they have a great online bug identification guide

The Department of Conservation (DOC) website is a goldmine of publications. They range from the technical and specialized, to visitor guides to natural and cultural heritage sites, to some great information on our native flora and fauna, to information supporting new and existing conservation groups and the environments they work in.

If you’re keen to get down and dirty for the conservation cause, various opportunities to get involved, including planting and working bee dates, can be found through:

▪ Department of Conservation

▪ [pic]Forest & Bird

▪ Greater Wellington have an events calendar and run Take Care, a programme supporting community groups that want to look after their local environment with financial support and specialist assistance. They also produce Be The Difference, an e-newsletter that comes out four times a year focussed on regional environmental issues and steps we can take to address them (also includes news, notice of upcoming events and competitions).

Want to do your bit for biodiversity in your own backyard? You can download some interesting and good-looking factsheets and posters:

▪ Gardening for lizards in the lower North Island (DOC factsheet)

▪ Tree planting for native birds in the lower North Island (DOC factsheet)

▪ Land snails from the Wellington region (DOC poster)

▪ Weta motel design (DOC)

▪ Native planting for streamsides in Wellington conservancy (DOC factsheet)

▪ Wellington Regional Native Plant Guide (GWRC booklet) - tells how you can use native plants which are ecologically appropriate for your area to help our native ecosystems survive and flourish, and at the same time beautify your garden.

Food

What does ‘eating sustainably’ mean? Roughly summarized, the crux is to eat wholefoods, locally sourced, in season, as organic as possible and go easy on the meat. For more information:

▪ Try Googling ‘eating sustainably’ for a wealth of (American) blogs and articles;

▪ Or a good summary, ‘The No Impact Sustainable Eating Plan’ from No Impact Man (a blog worth a look), can be found here (he also has a bit to say on local food). Or you can go old-school and borrow The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan from the library (find it at 394.12 POL; or a teens version at T338.10973 CHE).

Organic dry goods and fruit/veg cooperatives are operating in Paekakariki and Raumati. These can be a great way to access a variety of organic foods in bulk and at wholesale prices. The operating co-ops sometimes take new members or may be willing to talk to your group about setting up your own co-op. Contact Stacey for more information.

If you’re thinking about buying organic but are unsure where best to put your money, Organic NZ (Soil and Health Association’s magazine) contained an article in 2009 that looked at which foods were most likely to contain multiple pesticide residues. The list can be found here. (In the interests of balance, one response rubbishing the article can be found here).

Growing your own is as local (and fresh) as you can get. If you’re really serious about feeding your family from your garden, How To Grow More Vegetables (than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine) by John Jeavons is a classic. A simpler version, The Sustainable Vegetable Garden by John Jeavons and Carol Cox, was published in 1999 for beginner gardeners or those who didn’t need so much information. The former is available from Paraparaumu Library and the latter can be reserved through Kapiti Libraries’ SMART Libraries system, which incorporates the Libraries of Hutt City, Wellington Institute of Technology (WelTec), Whitireia New Zealand, Porirua City, Kapiti Coast District and Masterton District Library.

Another classic is Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew (google “square foot gardening” for lots of results, including a SFG Foundation). This book and more recent books by the same author are available from Kapiti Coast Libraries at 635 BAR.

Fancy taking a locavore challenge? Also known as the 100 Mile Diet, participants aim to eat locally for a set amount of time (pick the height of summer unless you really like root vegetables). Whole books have been written on this, including Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating by Barbara Kingsolver (available from Kapiti Coast District Libraries at 641.0973 KIN) and The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. Moveable Feasts: the incredible journeys of the things we eat, by Sarah Murray, is a US examination of food transportation and produce trade (381.41 MUR). An interesting article on locavorism and share-cropping, from The Wall Street Journal, can be found here.

Which leads us to eating seasonally, a natural consequence of localism... The trick is working out what is (really) available when and what you can do with it. This can be a big step for those who don’t garden, but there are lots of helpful cookbooks out there:

▪ Shop Local, Eat Well: Cooking With Seasonal Produce in New Zealand by Kathryn Hawkins (641.564 HAW)

▪ Eat Fresh: Cooking Through the Seasons by Annabel Langbein (641.564 LAN) - NZ book

▪ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating by Barbara Kingsolver (641.0973 KIN)

▪ Or you can find a seasonal eating chart here.

For ongoing inspiration, take a look at Whole Larder Love, an entertaining blog by Rohan Anderson (described in one recent post as a “redneck hippie”). Rohan blogs inspiringly about his garden, hunting, fishing and general food thoughts from an urban Australian backyard. Beautiful photos. Makes me hungry…

Or there’s the option of eating less meat. Have a look at the sidebar alongside this article for an idea of how much carbon different animals generate. If you don’t have vegetarian tendencies it can seem like a big change, but even one dinner a week will make a difference. Vegetarian recipes abound so just try the internet or library if you’re stuck for ideas. For more information on vegetarianism, the New Zealand Vegetarian Society is a good place to start.

Vegetables.co.nz is another great resource for recipes, dietary information, tips for feeding kids, downloadable leaflets. It even covers the basics of what to look for when choosing vegetables and how to store them.

Kapiti Libraries also have an After the Harvest book list here. Focused on gathering and preserving the surplus of your garden and beyond, it covers the best crops to grow for preserving; bottling and preserving; Maori food gathering; and wild foods.

And of course there’s the grand tradition of sharing food: taking a meal to a neighbour with a new baby, a tired friend, getting together for a pot-luck, baking for the school fair… Comfort: Food for Sharing is a great resource produced by Starship Children’s Hospital. "At the heart of this book is the fine Kiwi tradition of lending a helping hand by cooking a meal for, or giving the gift of food to, someone in need," says Gretchen Hawkesby, Chair of the Friends of Starship. Comfort includes lots of tasty one-pot meals, as well as slices, cakes and other baking. The recipes were contributed by the likes of Jo Seagar, Allyson Gofton, Al Brown, Tui Flower, Mark McDonough, Ray McVinnie, Peta Mathias, Annabelle White, Catherine Bell and others and have been chosen so that they can be prepared ahead and are easily transportable. Available at Kapiti Coast Libraries at 641.5 COM.

Goods & services

Kāpiti Coast District Libraries’ book list, Sustainable Living, covers natural housekeeping, plant medicine and alternative remedies in the Home/Health section. You can get a copy from the library.

The book list also contains some relevant books in the Business section, including Cradle To Cradle: rethinking the way we make things, by William McDonough. McDonough’s book takes the consideration of industrial design and management and production waste a step further than cradle-to-grave analysis by introducing recycling as the end-of-life disposal step. Cradle-to-grave analysis (also known as life cycle analysis, LCA, or ecobalance) assesses all the impact associated with all the stages of a process from cradle-to-grave (i.e., from raw materials through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling). Both analyses are an attempt to move beyond the prevalent cradle-to-gate model in which the product life-cycle is only partially assessed from manufacture ('cradle') to the factory gate (i.e., before it is transported to the consumer). The use phase and disposal phase of the product are usually omitted.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford, is a philosophical treatise on both how we value different types of work and our relationship with the built, material world. Crawford says, “A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our mode of inhabiting the world: more passive and more dependent. And indeed, there are fewer occasions for the kind of spiritedness that is called forth when we take things in hand for ourselves, whether to fix them or to make them. What ordinary people once made, they buy; and what they once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves installing a pre-made replacement part”. The original essay in The New Atlantis, from which the book came, can be found here.

Domestic Goddess on a Budget by Wendyl Nissen is a New Zealand guide to making your own natural cleaning and beauty products. Copies are held by Kapiti Coast Libraries (640.41 NIS). Wendyl also has a website with recipes for cleaning, pet, baby and beauty recipes, and a shop selling her books and products.

Grow Your Own Drugs: easy recipes for natural remedies and beauty fixes and Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year with James Wong, both written by James Wong, are UK books but very relevant to NZ. Held by Kapiti Coast District Libraries at 615.321 WON

Or more locally, Helen Heath, self-described writer and new media maven, book marketer and copywriting whiz from the Coast, has a great list of eco-friendly cleaner recipes on her blog at. She also has some nice body care recipes for doing without commercial shampoo/conditioner, and making your own toothpaste, baby wipes, bath bombs and bath salts.

The Ministry for Economic Development has developed a directory to improve the availability of information about ecolabels and other sustainability indicators. It provides summary information about each label, and users are encouraged to access further details from ecolabel owner websites using the links provided.

Ecobob is New Zealand’s great generalist website for all things related to eco-friendly living: eco-friendly houses/homes, products and services, sustainable design, eco news/events/information, online shop and a chat forum.

Clothing was once highly valued, handed down, and recycled but cheap offshore production and synthetics have changed that. While information on the amount of clothing sent to New Zealand landfills is not currently available, a United Kingdom study found that an average of 30 kilograms of clothing and textiles per person is wasted by being sent to landfills each year.

▪ You can find more information about clothing waste and some suggestions for dealing with it in this article, ‘Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry’, from Environmental Health Perspectives.

▪ The obvious option is to exercise your consumer choice and buy less. Brave enough to take The Pledge? Wardrobe Re-Fashion was a website dedicated to abstaining from buying new clothing and instead refashioning, renovating and recycling preloved items of clothing for an agreed period of time. Operating re-fashion communities can be found at Refashion Co-op, Restylistas and Allfreesewing.

▪ And of course, there’s secondhand. In addition to op-shops, other money-saving options are TradeMe, clothes swaps, and the online version, iswish. Clothes swaps are especially good for outgrown kid’s clothes – get your street / kindergarten / friends together with your bags of unwanted clothes and a glass of wine and away you go. Or have a look for more specific instructions here or here.

General/community

Kapiti Coast District Libraries’ Sustainable Living book list has a General section for all the great books that didn’t fit elsewhere. Copies are available from the library.

Chill-Ed is a community education initiative that has run two month-long workshop series’ in Paekakariki. The emphasis is on encouraging locals to show others how they do the things they do without feeling like they need to be a professional – “Everyone has something to teach and something they need to learn, we’re getting the two together”. Contact Stacey if you are interested in doing something similar in your community.

Neighbourhood Support aims to make our homes, streets, neighbourhoods and communities safer and more caring places in which to live. Neighbourhood Support New Zealand Incorporated provides support for all neighbourhood and rural support groups throughout New Zealand. To find out how to start your own group, have a look here. The NS Coordinator for Kapiti is Monica Steele. She can be contacted at nsg.kapiti@.nz.

The Sharehood is what happens when old-fashioned community meets the internet. The Sharehood began in September 2008 in Northcote, an inner north suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Theo Kitchener delivered a letter inviting 250 of his neighbours to create a local community and share household goods, skillshare with each other, and get to know one another. Theo then developed the

beginnings of this website. The Sharehood is mostly based in Melbourne but is a great model for sharing resources, be that stuff or skills, within your neighbourhood and has an emphasis on meeting and making friends with people in your local area.

Closer to home, the Otaki Timebank enables people to support each other and create community by trading hours of service. By posting skills or resources you have available to share, your hour of service earns you an hour of someone else’s. And a second timebank is on it’s way for the Paekakariki-Raumati area.

Living sustainably means living smarter. Get started with some ideas from 25 Easy Steps to Sustainability, a booklet produced by the Ministry for the Environment.

On To It: Great Ideas for a Sustainable Kapiti is Kapiti Coast District Council’s monthly sustainability newsletter. To receive it electronically, email ontoit@t.nz with “Subscribe” in the subject line. Information and back copies are here.

The world and its resources are finite, yet we are seemingly locked into a system based on growth: growth of population, growth of income and growth of consumption. From this irrefutable starting point, Time To Eat the Dog?: the real guide to sustainable living by Brenda and Robert Vale, attempts to uncover what sustainability really means, exploring the environmental impact of the decisions we make, from what we eat and what we wear to how we travel and enjoy ourselves. This book has been called subversive and provocative for the challenge it poses to the orthodoxies that underpin our entire economic system – and it’s a New Zealand book! Kapiti Coast District Libraries have copies at 363.7 VAL.

Happyzine is a positive news website, weekly electronic magazine and blog with a strong focus on the environment, Maori, youth, and inspiring New Zealanders. Happyzine also includes general good news from around the planet, opinion pieces, blogs, positive thinking success stories… and ran a series on our own Greenest Street competition!

Maria Hannaford blogs at Econest. Exploring ways to live more sustainably in her everyday life, she writes well, takes great photos and covers a range of topics. Recent favourite entries were on creating sustainability habits and the one that reinforced my belief that pallets are the way of the future.

Celsias° (tagline: Climate Change is Not a Spectator Sport) is all about doing practical things to combat climate change. A membership-based website, the idea is that you sign up then pledge to undertake actions and tell the online community when you’ve done them (and there’s lots of actions to choose from). This might not appeal to everyone but a similar model for children created by Meridian Energy, Tree People, proved very popular and successful (could be a family project?). Or you can just have a look at the actions for ideas or check out their interesting news and opinions.

Sustainable Living is a NZ charitable trust providing programmes and resources to help you make your household and lifestyle more sustainable. Courses cover making your house a healthier living place, how you can reduce your weekly waste, transport, organic gardening, water saving, shopping choices, carbon footprints, energy, eco-building design and community resilience, all with a practical focus. You can download action guides and a set of useful reading on environmental sustainability issues here or here

Information and resources provided by the NZ television series, Wa$ted, for reducing your waste, including greenhouse gas emissions, can be found here.

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