Sustainable Living Newsletter

Term 1 Newsletter, February 2010
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After Copenhagen's talkfest... let's get practical on carbon

It's time to think more about your carbon footprint. Why not try to trim 10% starting in 2010? Download free information on how to do 10:10 actions here at the Sustainable Living NZ website, also available on the Actions page.

The 10:10 idea is catching on fast in the UK, with backing from local government, media, businesses, schools, sports teams and the public.  Picture above shows a launch event from Britain where most of those present made first pledges of action at home or work - on insulation, travel, waste reduction and food choices.  You could do that!

Welcome to Sandy 

Sandy Ryan from the Community Houses of East Manukau City has joined the Sustainable Living trustees, bringing useful experience of hosting our classes in a multicultural setting. Picture below shows class members, tutor Peter Ng, Sandy and guests at the end of a course held in 2009.  

Sandy Ryan's work in Manukau City has been recognised as a finalist in the ARC environmental awards and recently featured in an article by Matt Bowen in the Eastern Courier. Here are some extracts:

"A white sock fixed to a car exhaust pipe isn't your typical learning tool.  Unless you’re taking part in Manukau’s first sustainable living programme at Howick and Pakuranga community houses.  ...  "When we do travel and have fuel emissions, we go out and start up a car and put a white sock over the exhaust pipe," says co-ordinator Sandy Ryan.  "It turns black pretty quickly – so what happens when that goes into the air? Nobody thinks about that and they get a real shock."  ...  Mrs Ryan says she initially had Chinese immigrants in mind because "they didn’t know what Kiwis grow or eat".  "So we started teaching them how to grow stuff."   
So Mrs Ryan set about setting up a service to help "new settlers" manage their properties better.  But many locals faced similar problems.  "We actually haven’t ended up with a huge number of migrants. We’ve ended up with a lot of New Zealanders who wanted to get back to growing things for themselves. They wanted to know what was in their food and that it was safe.  "People are really interested in living sustainably, trying to reduce their waste and lessen their impact on the environment." 
[See the full article here ]

Enviroschools and University links

Dr Maureen Howard (at the right of photo below) spoke with 18 school teachers at a Dunedin workshop last year about synergies between Enviroschools - which works within the childrens' learning curriculum - and Sustainable Living - designed for parents and proving useful to teachers. She demonstrated her point with a session on DIY household cleaners. Now sessions are planned which will link the two education programmes in some Dunedin schools. Similar Enviroschools links are under way in Marlborough, through Annie McDonald, Education Officer at Marlborough District Council. 

Maureen Howard is also running a series for Otago students living in flats, this term, as you don't have to be a householder to get real value from the course.

In Christchurch a new round of Eco My Flat will soon be under way at Canterbury University, using material from our programme to help equip the student flats for their actions during the first Semester. Read about this at their competition webpage and see UC's new E-booklet for students which is a great starter. < http://www.sustain.canterbury.ac.nz/ecomyflat/Eco_My_Flat_booklet.pdf >