Community efforts to be kinder to the planet have been given a financial boost in the Waitaki.

A Hampden community group and Weston School were two of the lucky recipients of the inaugural round of funding through the Waste Minimisation Fund, set up by the Waitaki District Council.

There were 11 applications for the inaugural round of funding which was open throughout August, with eight receiving either full or partial funding, from an available $30,000, to support their efforts.

Council waste minimisation officer Lucianne White said she was “thrilled” with the number of strong applications received, and their “wonderful ideas”.

The fund promoted the “Waste Hierarchy”:

1. Rethink - stop waste before it is created;

2. Reduce - reduce the amount of waste created;

3. Re-use/repurpose, regift, repair, recharge the soil. 

Projects closer to the top of the list had a larger impact, and were more likely to receive funding, Lucianne said.

The Hampden Community Workshop and Weston School both received the maximum of $5000. 

Hampden community workshop is aiming to provide diversion and minimisation of waste, through repair cafe activities (where local people bring damaged belongings, and expert volunteers do their best to fix them) as well as long-term community and social benefits and behaviour-change education.

Workshop spokesperson Dugald MacTavish said, when he first arrived in Moeraki more than 35 years ago, everyone dumped their waste at the old dumps near the sea, and they hated it.

"Since we have started to treat our waste as a resource in the Waitaki, and our communities have engaged with sharing and recycling, a visit to our recovery park is a much happier experience.” 

The next step on the path to Hampden one day, becoming a zero-waste community, was the construction of an upcycling workshop.

Weston School will put its money towards a waste sort station, which aims to divert as much waste going through the school system as possible, and use an educational angle focusing on rethinking resources used in teaching.

Teacher Erina Simpson was looking forward to growing on the school’s already successful paper and food scrap programme, and said she applied for the grant on behalf of the school’s Envirogroup to help develop a school-based sorting and waste minimisation centre to provide ready access to re-usable resources for various learning projects.

“These developments will also allow us to address the management of our own waste beyond the clean paper recycling and food scrap waste that we currently manage.” 

The children would in turn become more informed and active citizens, educating their friends and families and, therefore the wider community in regard to waste minimisation.

Lucianne said the fund would be open for applications again next August, but encouraged groups and communities to make contact with her for advice or guidance at any time.

Contact Lucianne at [email protected]