Reducing Waste
The waste hierarchy shows the most effective ways to reduce waste generation and impact. Avoiding and reducing waste are right at the top and will always be the best options for preventing environmental harm from our activities and decisions.
On this page you’ll find a few tips and ideas to help keep us in the green!
Avoid, reduce, reuse
Avoiding (rethinking) and reducing waste means saying no to items we don’t need. Reusing provides us an opportunity to avoid buying something new. Below are just a few ideas for these three ‘R’s – but hunt around and ask others for more!
At home
Rethink
Think carefully about the things you are buying. Do you need this item? What will its pathway be once you have finished with it? If you need it, are there other options which have less packaging or a better after-use pathway available?
Consider swapping bottled products for bars (or make your own), for example hand soap, dish soap, shampoo/conditioner, moisturisers, deodorants, cleaning products – many of these come with paper or cardboard wrapped bar/stick options or can be made from similar base ingredients.
Before you buy a new item or appliance, see if what you have can be repaired. If you have to buy, consider businesses who sell refurbished appliances first. Often these items end up with these businesses because of an easily fixed fault which they will have dealt with, preventing the item from going to landfill. If you do need to buy new, go for the best quality you can afford.
Reduce
Reduce food waste. The average Kiwi family throws away three shopping trolleys worth of edible food each year! Visit Love Food Hate Waste for information and strategies.
Talk to friends and family, let them know you are working to reduce your waste outputs. Hopefully they will keep this in mind when selecting gifts or other things for you.
Talk to family and friends about gift and celebration systems you use among your networks – do you need to give a gift to everyone on every occasion? Could you gift experiences or start new traditions to avoid waste from events and celebrations? Switch to paper decorations.
Reuse
Set up ‘share’ networks among friends and family. When it comes to ‘sometimes’ items like camping gear, tools, yard equipment, sports and leisure gear, talk to your network about what you can share and borrow from each other to avoid everyone buying their own.
Set up swap schemes among friends and family for toys, books, clothing and other similar things. Sometimes we dispose of these items because we’re bored of them – but they’ll still be novel for someone else!
Buy from bulk bins – take your own container. If you have to use bags provided, take them back next time to re-use as many times as you can (particularly if you buy the same products frequently – your bags will already be labelled with the code you need).
Keep ice-cream and other sturdy plastic containers for storage. Recycling is okay, but reuse is better (it’s higher up on the waste hierarchy).
Opt for reusable products over single use wherever you can, for example nappies, sanitary products, kitchen cloths.
At work and school
Rethink
Do a waste audit on what is being thrown away. The best way to reduce your waste is to understand your starting point. There are several agencies who can help with this if needed (including our Waste Minimisation Officer at Council). Talk to your team about what you found and what you want to achieve.
Consider environmental impact when planning meetings and events. Do you need people to be there in person? Is there a venue available which would reduce travel needs? What resources do you really need for the meeting?
Reduce
Set printers to print double-sided. Keep unwanted single-sided prints for scrap paper or convert to note pad.
Reuse
Avoid covering schoolbooks with decorative plastic cover (an uncovered book can usually be recycled once it is no longer needed).
Out and about
Walk or bike as much as you can – any other form of transport generates waste of some sort. If you do need to travel by vehicle, public buses and carpooling are great ways to reduce your individual travel emissions.
Pack some snacks from home to avoiding buying convenience foods. Usually, these foods will come in single-use packaging.
Carry a drink bottle, download the Refill NZ app to identify which locations will allow you to fill your water bottle for free.
Take a keep cup if you may stop for coffee in your travels. Many food venues will also allow you to provide your own containers for takeaway foods, call ahead to find out. Or – if you do not have these items with you, consider taking a moment to dine in.
Composting food waste
While it is always best to avoid food waste, there are some food parts that won’t be consumed. Composting can help ensure valuable resources available within food scraps and garden waste can be used again, rather than being sent to landfill where they’ll create harmful methane emissions.
To help you learn about composting or test the knowledge of your whānau and friends, we've made a compost sorting game.
There are several options for composting at home:
- Traditional composting – a most commonly used method using a ‘cold’ compost bin or pile. This process can take between 6 weeks and a year to break down depending on how involved you are in the process. Even with little to no input, it will break down into soil on its own over time.
- Worm farming or vermicomposting - a great alternative to conventional composting for people who don’t have time to maintain a compost pile but want compost fast. Worm farms use a special type of worm to process organic waste into castings which your soil will absolutely love.
- Bokashi – a great way to process scraps which do not break down as easily through other composting methods, including meats, dairy and processed foods. This method ferments the scraps, so they can then be buried or added to a compost heap for final processing.
- Hot compost – for keen composters. This method maintains a temperature of about 60-70 degrees Celsius and is the fastest way to break down organic materials.
Want help with composting?
Rotorua Lakes Council offers free composting workshops to help get you started or strengthen composting systems you may already have underway. Email us at recycling@rotorualc.nz for more information or help with any composting questions.
There are many other organisations working in this space who can help you reduce waste, including:
Great self-help resources can also be found on the Compost Collective website.
