Rubbish!

Rubbish!

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by Robyn Martin, a Māngere Bridge resident

One Saturday morning last year I was going to the Māngere Bridge Library when I noticed a table set up outside loaded with rubbish. 

I slowed down to see what was going on. The woman at the table asked if I knew how to recycle my soft plastic rubbish. I said that I tried to recycle as much as possible.  It was Caroline, one of the people from Friends of the Farm, who waylaid me and showed me how the pile of rubbish on the table could be easily sorted and recycled.  

“See this cheese wrapping and this pasta packet and this wrapper from a packet of biscuits and this frozen peas bag, all this waste can be recycled. If you can scrunch it up in your hand then it’s recyclable.  Just collect it separately from your usual plastic and glass bottles and drop it in the special bin outside a Countdown supermarket or the Warehouse” she said.

A simple, effective and memorable message that really got through to me.

Since then I have happily (and diligently) collected this form of waste and doing this, along with my compost bin and the usual paper/glass/plastic recycling bin has led to a huge reduction in the amount of rubbish I send to landfill each week. 

Once my red bin was always three quarters full. Now two small bags of rubbish (in compostable bags) don’t even fill a quarter of the bin. 

All thanks to a timely and informative encounter at my local Library.  Since that encounter I have also been inspired to join Friends of the Farm and support their vision of Māngere Bridge as a Wastewise, Caring Community.

Wastewise with Friends of the Farm

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