Zero Waste in Taranaki

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Our heartfelt gratitude to Sugarcube Studios, for bringing our guides to life – designing a map for us and creating such joyful imagery to go with it!

The following shops sell unpackaged meat, sausages, smallgoods, seafood, cheese and/or deli foods and will happily put these straight into a BYO container – woohoo!

• TLC Meats, Richmond Centre, Shop 12 Corner St Aubyn Street and Egmont Street, New Plymouth – while most goods in the shop are prepackaged, this butcher is happy for you to leave BYO containers at the shop (with a list of what you want) so you can get unpackaged cuts of meat, sausages and smallgoods
• The Kiwi Butcher Shop, 50 Leach Street, New Plymouth – while most goods in the shop are prepackaged, this butcher is happy for you to leave BYO containers at the shop so you can get unpackaged cuts of meat, sausages and smallgoods
• Mad Butcher Taranaki, 215 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth – this store allows you to order meat to be put into your own containers. You need to bring your containers into the store at least the day before so that the store has them for when they do the morning packing the next day.
• Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth – while not a butcher, here you can get organic butter wrapped in brown waxed paper, and Bostock’s organic chicken which comes in Grounded certified home compostable packaging
• Central Butchery/Slaghuis, 236 Broadway, Stratford
• Normanby Butchery, 12 Mawhitiwhiti Road, Normanby
• Hurley’s Butchery, 67 Egmont Street, Patea
• Unpackaged live mussels – there are a few stores around town that stock unpackaged live mussels at self-serve counters. We put them straight into upcycled ice cream containers/BYO containers rather than the plastic bags the stores usually provide. You can find unpackaged live mussels at New World Waitara, 42 Queen Street, Waitara; New World New Plymouth, 78 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; PAK’nSAVE New Plymouth, 53 Leach Street, New Plymouth; Countdown New Plymouth, 174 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; New World Stratford, 124 Regan Street, Stratford; and PAK’nSAVE Hawera, 54 Princes Street, Hawera.
• Supermarket delis – Most supermarkets have a deli section offering unpackaged meat, seafood, olives and other antipasti, salads, lunch foods and more. All Countdown, New World and PAK’nSAVE supermarkets officially allow you to BYO container for these goods!

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The following stores bake and sell unpackaged bread and bakery goods (in some of these stores some items might be pre-packed or wrapped in cling film, just avoid those things!). Simply BYO bread bag to put the bread/bakery goods into. Some places will bag up their bread later in the day, so you want to get in there before they do that (i.e. before 1pm).

• Waitara Hot Bread Shop, 54 McLean Street, Waitara
• Billow Bakery, Quarterbank 91b Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Piccolo Morso, 573 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• Bateman’s, 86 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• Public Catering Company, 43 Queen Street, New Plymouth – stocks unpackaged loaves of bread and also biscuits/cookies and granola in glass jars that can be returned to the store to be reused.
• Target Bakehouse, Richmond Centre, 4 Egmont Street, New Plymouth
• Petit Paris French Bakery, 34 Currie Street, New Plymouth
• Villa Bumblebee – a beautiful local artisan sourdough bakery, whose bread is available in several locations around New Plymouth: at the Farmers’ Market Taranaki, Sundays at Currie Street, New Plymouth; Beach Road Milk, 20 Beach Road, Omata on Mondays and Thursdays; Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth on Wednesdays; and on Fridays and Saturdays at Vetro Taranaki, 322 Devon Street East, New Plymouth.
• Lunch Shack Bakery, 79 High Street, Hawera
• Most supermarkets (and even some Four Squares) stock unpackaged bread, bread rolls and/or bakery goods in their bakery section – just pop them into your BYO bags!

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• Markets – No two ways about it, if you want a good source of unpackaged (often locally grown) produce, markets are the place to go! At most markets you can meet the grower/producer face-to-face, making them an ideal place to start fruitful conversations about waste-free food, and to develop relationships and systems that enable you to get your favourite fruit, vege and preserves without the packaging. At markets you may also find local producers of pre-made foods like tofu, preserves and sauces etc. Have a chat to see if you can leave containers with the stall holders for them to fill with your desired product for you to pick up from them the following week, or if the stallholder uses glass jars for packaging, ask whether they will take their empty glass jars back for sterilisation and reuse. BYO bags and containers for a range of goodies available at Farmers’ Market Taranaki, Sundays at Currie Street, New Plymouth. You can get a range of unpackaged food here, including fresh fruit and veges (including the urban-grown spray-free produce from our friends at Freeman Farms), fresh-baked bread, preserves, eggs, and much more – just check out the website for stallholders, or rock up on a Sunday! Other markets to check out are the Seaside Market, at Ngāmotu Beach, Oceanview Parade (first Sunday of every month 10am-2pm); and Prospero Farmers’ Market (last Saturday of the month, 9am-1pm) in Stratford.
• Trade Aid – Trade Aid‘s 1.5kg sugar bags are also great for upcycling as bulk bin bags, and are home compostable once they do wear out. Trade Aid’s coconut oil is one of the few on the market that does not have a plastic seal around the lid. You can get all these products at Trade Aid, 82 Devon Street East, New Plymouth.
• HokoLoko – an amazing project that connects consumers with local food producers. You simply register on the website, see what goods are available, make your order (over the weekend), then head down to the weekly hui to pick your order up and meet the people who grow/make/prepare it too! The hui is every Wednesday 5.15-6.15pm, held at The Open Space, 33 Devon Street West, New Plymouth. As HokoLoko connects consumers with local producers, it’s a perfect opportunity to have a conversation with the person you intend to buy your food from about how you can get their beautiful produce without the packaging. There’ll almost always be a workaround, so be sure to ask and be ready to provide some ideas to make it easier for everyone 🙂
• Unpackaged chocolate/sweets/snacks – @ Your Office & Lotto, 168 High Street, Hawera stocks a selection of unpackaged sweets – BYO jar/bags!

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Look out for places that sell whole or ground coffee beans unpackaged, and bring your own bag and container to fill. Going direct to coffee roasters is the best option, but you can also look out for bulk dispensers of unpackaged coffee in other stores (which usually have in-store grinders also). Here are the spots we found that offer these options:

• Escape Coffee Roasters at 15 Liardet Street, New Plymouth – just try to go when they aren’t busy (they also give a 50c discount for BYO reusable cups)
• Ozone, 47a King Street, New Plymouth
• Pr%f & Stock, Cutfield Road (between St Aubyn Street & Devon Street West), New Plymouth
• Wildcat Coffee, 26 Queen Street, New Plymouth
• The Laughing Pug, 1 Glenpark Avenue, Sushi Ninja, 89 Devon Street East, New Plymouth or find them on Sunday at the Farmer’s Market Taranaki on Currie Street (it might be good to give these guys a call first to let them know you’d like to get coffee in BYO bags/containers so that they bring loose beans with them).
• Devils Cup Coffee, 44 Bedford Street, Patea.

We avoid teabags as most have plastic in them, which we don’t want in our tea or our soil. Using loose leaf tea is an easy way to get around this. The trick is to find somewhere that sells loose leaf tea packaging-free, so you can put the leaves straight into BYO jars/containers! You’ll find loose tea leaves in bulk dispensers at:

• Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth – ask if they can fill your own bag with tea from out the back of the store.

Sourcing cow’s milk without the plastic bottles or non-dairy milk without the dreaded Tetra-pak is no mean feat! We’ve found the following options:

• Milk on tap or from a vending machine – milk is available on tap from a vending machine at THREE locations: Beach Road Milk, 20 Beach Road, Omata, New Plymouth; Dolly’s Milk, 209 Manutahi Road, Bell Block, New Plymouth AND 297 Warwick Road, Stratford. Simply BYO bottle to fill up, or purchase a reusable glass bottle there that you can then refill on future occasions.

Look out for places that sell beer on tap and BYO bottles/flagons to fill up. Breweries are awesome, but lots of liquor stores offer this option too! We found beer on tap at:

• Mike’s Brewery Bistro, 186 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• Shining Peak Brewing, 59 Gill Street, New Plymouth
• Liquorland Fitzroy, 594 Devon Street East, New Plymouth has the best selection with 8 craft beers on tap!
• Liquorland Powderham, 2 Powderham Street, New Plymouth
• Liquor King, corner Devon and Mount Edgecumbe Streets, New Plymouth.
• If you’re near Bell Block, check out The Theoretical Brewer, 11 Corbett Road, Bell Block, New Plymouth a local nano-brewery!

Also, don’t forget that most liquor stores do ‘swappa crates’ of beer – i.e. crates of twelve 745ml bottles of classic NZ beer (e.g. Lion Red/Brown, Speights, Tui, Export Gold etc.) which can be returned (when the bottles are empty) and are then sent back to the brewery for sterilisation and refill (a better outcome for glass bottles than recycling because reusing the same bottle over and over requires way less energy and resources than recycling).

• Drinking Chocolate/Cocoa – a few places sell cocoa powder in bulk bins: Moturoa Four Square, 3 Lawry Street, New Plymouth; Taranaki Fresh, 629 Devon Road, New Plymouth; as does Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara.

Reusable drinking vessels (cups and water bottles)

Refills of cleaning products

The following stores stock liquid and/or powdered cleaning products in bulk dispensers – BYO bottles/containers!

• Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara
• Moturoa Four Square, 3 Lawry Street, New Plymouth
• Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Watts Good Creations, Hawera – an amazing zero waste business run by Krystel from Hawera. Krystel makes a range of palm oil-free cleaning products from 100% natural ingredients, including natural spray and wipe, laundry powder, and a (soon to be released) dishwash soap bar. Check the Watts Good Creations Facebook shop to see a full range of products. All Krystel’s products can be refilled into your own bottles/containers (or refilled into the original bottles that your first batch of Watts Good Creations cleaning product came in!). To order, simply get in touch with Krystel through the Watts Good Creations Facebook page. To avoid delivery costs and delivery packaging, you can arrange to pick-up your order, have a friend pick it up for you if they’re going to be around Hawera, or Krystel can arrange a way to get the goods to you 🙂

Home compostable veggie brushes (which you can use as a handle-less dishbrush) are also sold at Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; Tempt, 110 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; This + That, 220 High Street, Hawera.

Laundry

• Eco Planet, Next Generation and Earthwise laundry powders come in a cardboard box with a cardboard scoop (or no scoop at all for Earthwise!) – no plastic lining! You can get one of them from most supermarkets, but we saw all three at New World New Plymouth, 78 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth and PAK’nSAVE Hawera, 54 Princes Street, Hawera; Eco Planet and Earthwise at New World Waitara, 42 Queen Street, Waitara; just Eco Planet at SuperValue Bell Block, Parklands Shopping Centre, 188 Parklands Avenue, Bell Block; New World Stratford, 124 Regan Street, Stratford; and just Earthwise at PAK’nSAVE New Plymouth, 53 Leach Street, New Plymouth; Countdown New Plymouth, 174 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; and Countdown Hawera, corner Union and Nelson Streets, Hawera.
• You can also get Living Green laundry powder, which is in just cardboard and brown paper (also septic tank safe) with a bamboo scoop, from (almost) any Countdown supermarket.
• Soapnuts – natural nut shells that release saponin (like soap) in water and can be used for laundry. Once spent, the shells can be composted. You can find the Soapnuts brand, which comes in a cardboard box, no plastic lining, at Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Alternatives to plastic clothes pegs – get stainless steel pegs at Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; Willo, 290 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; and Maple and Wild, 83 Regent Street, Hawera.

Ingredients for DIY cleaning products

• Watts Good Creations, Hawera – stocks a wide range of natural ingredients for DIY cleaning products in bulk – just arrange a time with Krystel to BYO your jars/containers.
• Baking soda – available unpackaged in bulk bins at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; and Taranaki Fresh, 629 Devon Road, New Plymouth.
• Epsom Salts – available unpackaged in bulk bins at Moturoa Four Square, 3 Lawry Street, New Plymouth; and Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara
• Bars of castile soap, which you can use as a base for homemade dishwashing and laundry liquid (see how it works here) – get locally made Be Natural bars of castille soap at The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; or US-made Dr Bronner’s at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; and Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth.

Zero waste teeth and mouth

• Bamboo toothbrushes – a great alternative to plastic toothbrushes because they have wooden, home compostable handles (though bristles are still plastic and need to be removed from the handle and put in a rubbish bin). You can find bamboo toothbrushes at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; SuperValue Bell Block, Parklands Shopping Centre, 188 Parklands Avenue, Bell Block; New World Waitara, 42 Queen Street, Waitara; PAK’nSAVE New Plymouth, 53 Leach Street, New Plymouth; Countdown New Plymouth, 174 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; New World New Plymouth, 78 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; Kode Boutique, 62 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; Len Lye Centre shop, 42 Queen Street, New Plymouth; Willo, 290 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; Papa Toa, Lynmouth, New Plymouth; New World Stratford, 124 Regan Street, Stratford; Countdown Hawera, corner Union and Nelson Streets, Hawera; PAK’nSAVE Hawera, 54 Princes Street, Hawera; and Maple and Wild, 83 Regent Street, Hawera.
• Dental Floss – Countdown New Plymouth, 174 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; and Countdown Hawera, corner Union and Nelson Streets, Hawera, stock Do Gooder floss, which comes in a refillable glass tube with a screw on metal lid. The WHITE floss is made of 100% silk and is home compostable (the black floss has polyester in it so is landfill only). When you run out of the floss, no need to get a new dispenser, you can get refills of the floss in a cardboard box direct from Do Gooder, or also at Egmont Honey & Health and The Collaboration. There’s another brand of silk floss sold at Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth, but we can’t find much info about them…
• Toothpaste – there are toothpaste tabs sold in metal tins at The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth. There are a bunch of companies that sell them online in brown paper you can get as refills for your tin.

Unpackaged Bars of Soap

The following stores sell totally naked bars of soap:

• Waitara Floral Studio & Gifts, 4/60 McLean Street, Waitara
• Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara
• Willo, 290 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• @quisitions, Centre City Mall, 11 Gill Street, New Plymouth
• Puke Ariki Store, 1 Ariki Street, New Plymouth
• Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• Kina NZ Design + Artspace, 101 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Mee O Mi, 548 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• Country Connections, 80 Tasman Street, Opunake
• The Collective, 98 High Street, Hawera

Bars for Shampoo/Shaving/Deodorant/Moisturiser

We’d encourage you to get your everyday toiletries – from shampoo through to shaving soap – in bar form, which means you totally avoid the plastic/aluminium bottles that liquid products usually come in!

• The popular Ethique range of shampoo bars, conditioner bars, shaving bars, deodorant bars, moisturiser bars, etc. (all of Ethique‘s bars come in home compostable packaging) are available at Farmers, Centre City Shopping Centre, 11 Gill Street, New Plymouth; and Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• You can get locally made Be Natural shampoo bars at The Collaboration, 12-14 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
• Get facial cleansing bars at Kina NZ Design + Artspace, 101 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; and  Puke Ariki Store, 1 Ariki Street, New Plymouth
• Get Simple Naked Soap and Dirty Hippie shampoo bars at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara
• There are a range of deodorants that come in cardboard tubes which can be composted when empty. Get Dirty Hippie doedorant at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; the N8 brand is at The Health Shop, Centre City Shopping Centre, 11 Gill Street, New Plymouth; and Moturoa Pharmacy, 492 St Aubyn Street, New Plymouth; Ever Kind and Nature Body deodorants are sold at Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth – they also do sunscreen here; Ever Kind deodorant at Puke Ariki Store, 1 Ariki Street, New Plymouth; and Raw Nature and Bee Fresh brands at Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Thyme Out, 277 Broadway, Stratford – sells dog and animal shampoo bars unpackaged.
• Watts Good Creations, Hawera – an amazing zero waste business run by Krystel from Hawera. Krystel makes a shampoo bar and deodorant bar. Check the Watts Good Creations Facebook shop to see a full range of products.

Reusable Menstrual Products

There are zero waste, low cost alternatives to disposable sanitary items like tampons and pads.

• Menstrual cups – stocked at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; The Health Shop, Centre City Shopping Centre, 11 Gill Street, New Plymouth; Life Pharmacy, Centre City Shopping Centre, 13/11 Gill Street, New Plymouth; Lander & Black Pharmacy, 1 Devon Street East, New Plymouth; Countdown New Plymouth, 174 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; New World New Plymouth, 78 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; Beautea, 575b Devon Street East, New Plymouth; Robertson’s Pharmacy, 94 High Street, Hawera; and Countdown Hawera, corner Union and Nelson Streets, Hawera.
• Papa Toa, Lynmouth, New Plymouth also stocks menstrual cups, organic bamboo washable sanitary pads and maternity breast pads. To order any products, give Papa Toa a call (02108172254) or send them a message through their website and you can either have things delivered to you, or save on delivery and arrange to go and pick up/view the items yourself at their shed store in Lynmouth!

Shaving

Ingredients for DIY cosmetics/toiletries

• Watts Good Creations, Hawera – if you’re keen to make your own bathroom and beauty products and would like to get your hands on the ingredients but without the packaging, Krystel also stocks many of the kinds of ingredients you need. She purchases in bulk so can sell to you unpackaged – just arrange a time with Krystel to BYO containers/jars to fill up!
• Baking Soda is an essential ingredient in lots of homemade toiletries such as toothpaste and deodorant. You can get it unpackaged in bulk from Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; and Taranaki Fresh, 629 Devon Road, New Plymouth.

Liquid Toiletries on Tap

• Moturoa Four Square, 3 Lawry Street, New Plymouth
• Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Egmont Honey & Health, 66 Devon Street West, New Plymouth – stocks a range of toiletries and cosmetics by Hayley Benseman that come in glass jars that can be returned for reuse.
• Mee O Mi, 548 Devon Street East, New Plymouth – not liquids, but stocks unpackaged bath salts in bulk dispensers

Other

• Papa Toa, Lynmouth, New Plymouth – a local Taranaki, family-run business selling all natural organic rongoa Māori healing balms made from locally harvested ingredients which come in refillable jars. If you return your empty jars for refill you’ll get a $1 discount on your next jar of pani/balm! Papa Toa also stocks menstrual cups, organic bamboo washable sanitary pads and maternity breast pads. To order any products, give Papa Toa a call (02108172254) or send them a message through their website and you can either have things delivered to you, or save on delivery and arrange to go and pick up/view the items yourself at their shed store in Lynmouth!
• Toilet Paper – get Greencane toilet paper (which comes in fully home compostable packaging) at Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara (in four packs or single rolls unpackaged); and Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth
• Cotton Buds – Go Bamboo makes home compostable buds so you can avoid the single-use, unrecyclable plastic ones. Get them from Bin Inn Waitara, 61 McLean Street, Waitara; PAK’nSAVE New Plymouth, 53 Leach Street, New Plymouth; New World New Plymouth, 78 Courtenay Street, New Plymouth; Down to Earth, 268 Devon Street West, New Plymouth; and PAK’nSAVE Hawera, 54 Princes Street, Hawera.

Reuse and Recycle

• Taranaki Region A-Z Zero Waste Directory – Taranaki has a regional goal to be zero waste by 2040 – woah! To help the region on its way to achieving this goal, the district councils have produced this handy zero waste directory to help you find ways of dealing with waste you might otherwise send to landfill. Well worth a look!
• Food waste and composting – food waste in a bin gets sent to landfill where it breaks down anaerobically, producing methane (a potent greenhouse gas). No! Here are some alternatives:
  • Food scrap collections – Lucky you if you’re in New Plymouth or South Taranaki Districts – your councils have introduced a kerbside green bin collection – so no excuses for putting food scraps in the landfill bin any longer! These scraps all get taken to be composted rather than landfilled. YAY!
  • Home composting/worm farms/bokashi – Having a composting, worm farm or bokashi bin system at home is the best and cheapest way to deal with your food scraps and means you get to keep the resource, rather than giving it away to someone else to compost. If you’d like help setting one up or working out what the best system would be for you, check out the FREE Let’s Compost workshops run by Barbara and supported by Sustainable Taranaki and New Plymouth District Council. Not only are these free to attend, but all attendees get a discount coupon for a worm farm, compost bin or bokashi bin system!
  • Edible business food waste – food that is still edible that goes to waste is a crying shame. On the House is a wonderful non-profit, community organisation in New Plymouth that rescues edible food from businesses and then redistributes it back to the community for free, no questions asked, every Thursday from 4:30pm-5:30pm in the capark next door to 109 Devon Street West, New Plymouth. Yay!
• E-waste – electronic waste is the world’s fastest growing waste stream, with huge environmental implications because of the toxins that can be leached from this waste, but also the loss of incredibly precious resources embedded in these items that are not recovered when the waste is dumped in landfill.
  • Repair – Rather than throwing you broken electronics out – have you considered trying to get them repaired first? If you’d like to try your own hand at repairing your things, consider going along to a Repair or Fix-it Cafe where experts donate their time to fix people’s broken items for free at a designated repair event (usually run by community centres, churches or councils). Sustainable Taranaki is looking into hosting some of these at the Resource Recovery Centre in New Plymouth once the education space there is fully developed, so keep your eyes peeled. You may even want to offer your own services if you’re handy at fixing things in some way!
  • Recycle – If your electronics really have given up the ghost, rather than chucking them out, take them to be recycled responsibly. You can do this at the New Plymouth, Hawera and Stratford transfer stations. You will have to pay to recycle them (until the Government starts to regulate manufacturers of these products), but it’s a small cost relative to damage these items otherwise cause in landfill.
• The Junction – Community Reuse and Recycle Centre, 31 Colson Road, New Plymouth – currently under development. The New Plymouth District Council has collaborated with three community groups to make The Junction project happen: WISE (an employment support organisation), Sustainable Taranaki, and Xtreme Zero Waste (in Raglan) as an adviser. Once fully up and running, the centre will provide many services, including a retail space where donated goods can be upcycled or done up and resold, alongside a reuse and recycling drop-off area. Sustainable Taranaki is already running workshops on waste minimisation in the new education space, as well as FREE tours of the resource recovery centre. Keep an eye on the centre’s Facebook page for updates, information and cool posts!

Zero Waste Information and Support Networks

• Sustainable Taranaki – this brilliant organisation provides an impressive range of workshops and events that support more sustainable living, including a range of workshops and resources that can help you to reduce waste. Workshop topics include composting/worm farms/mulching, gardening and foraging, zero waste cooking, DIY household cosmetics and cleaning products, fermentation and cheese-making and more! The Trust helps to organise events in partnership with various other groups and businesses, from crop swaps, to sharing farming skills and practices. The Trust is always looking for more people with expertise to run workshops and help to organise events around sustainable living.
• Para Kore – Para Kore is an amazing organisation working with marae, kura and Māori institutions and businesses to transition towards zero waste. Their resources/services are free and their regional kaiārahi are totally fabulous. The kaiarahi for Taranaki is Emily Bailey, so get in touch if you know an organisation Para Kore could work with in the region (or if you are involved with an organisation that would like to have Para Kore’s support!)
• Rethinking Plastic Revolution – a powerful project aiming to educate, inspire and provide practical resources around reducing plastic waste in New Plymouth, driven by the wonderful Lorella Doherty. The project provides a space for the New Plymouth community to share thoughts and ideas around reducing plastic consumption, and Lorella researches and highlights businesses who are already doing the mahi of reducing the plastic they pass on to customers (for example, she has compiled a list of cafes that provide discounts for people who BYO their own reusable takeaway coffee cup). Also, check out Lorella’s incredible murals that she makes from plastic she’s picked up off beaches around the district.
• Zero Waste Taranaki – the Taranaki region has a goal of zero waste by 2040. The district councils have created this website that includes a wide array of tips on waste reduction at home, on farms, at businesses, schools, and events.
• Watts Good Creations – want to learn how to make your own cleaning and bathroom products out of unpackaged ingredients? Well, check out the Watts Good Creations Facebook page for upcoming workshops. Watts Good Creations is a Hawera business run by Krystel, who makes all natural cleaning and bathroom products and finds ways to get them to customers zero waste. Krystel also runs workshops to help the public get into DIY cleaning and bathroom products too! So if you’re keen to learn, see when the next workshop is on and sign up!
• Boomerang Bags Taranaki Enviroschools – get yourself some lovely cloth bags instead of plastic shopping bags from the Boomerang Bags made with the support of Taranaki’s Enviroschools and the champion of the initiative, Lauree Jones. You can find their bags at locations around Taranaki – send a message on Facebook to find out where, or keep an eye out! If you’re a sewer or just keen to help, there are regular sew-a-thons to make more bags – sign up to help sew a few if you feel up to it. The Boomerang Bags movement is taking NZ by storm, so it’s a great opportunity to get amongst it!

Share and Exchange

• Timebanking – Through timebanking you can share skills and services without the exchange of money, making it a great way to reduce waste on a budget because you can harness skills of creating and repairing that exist in your community (repairing broken clothes or electronics, for example), or having someone pass these skills on to you (how to garden, how to build). Perhaps you have some of these skills already that you could pass on to someone else for time credits? The Taranaki Timebank is thriving and well worth getting involved with, if you aren’t already!
• Crop Swap – Taranaki is the birthplace of the amazing crop swap in Aotearoa. At a crop swap, individuals who have veges or seedlings they’ve grown, preserves or baking they’ve made (or similar), or even home-made knitting/crochet (etc.) crafts (anything made or grown by your hands), come together once a fortnight or once a month, to trade their offerings without any money changing hands – all free! Just bring something to share and let the swapping begin! Trading homegrown or home created goodies with friends and locals means you can avoid all that packaging that often comes with a store setting. You can also have friendly chats about how to share goods without the waste. There are crop swaps dotted all around Taranaki – check out this website for a location near you (note the website is constantly being updated and may be missing locations – you may need to ask around).
• Toy Libraries – reduce the wasteful over-consumption of toys and save money by joining a toy library! Check out this guide to find the nearest Toy Library to you.

Skills and Resourcefulness in Communities

• Menzshed – there are Menzshed, particularly around Northern Taranaki. Menzshed provides a great opportunity for men of all ages to share tools and a workspace (reducing the wasteful overduplication of these resources) and to pass on skills of woodworking and other trades. Menzsheds frequently offer communities the service of repairing broken items like furniture (at a small cost), work with upcycled material that might otherwise go to waste, and also create bespoke items for community and charitable purposes. Definitely look up your local!
• Peihana Farm, 281 Okoki Road, Urenui – this gem out in Urenui runs many workshops on creative, sustainable living (including on waste reduction topics). The owner, Maria, is an expert on sustainable food preparation and gardening, so apart from running workshops on these topics, the farm will soon have enough produce to sell as well – keep an eye out!