love your rubbish

“Love Your Rubbish” is a great little phase being well used by the Christchurch City Council at the moment, in league with their curb side rubbish and recycling collection. One important aspect of there system is the separation of organic material into a green bin, items that can be recycled going into a huge yellow bin, and then the everything else ending up in a little red bin. It’s a great system and it is amazing just how much can end up in the recycling bin, and also how clean this bin stays in comparison to the red bin with all the nasty other stuff.

When in the great NZ outdoors, one aspect of Leaving No Trace is of course “Disposing of Waste Properly”. When there are no bins provided then the motto “Pack it in, Pack it out” comes into play. But in a group, or even just between a few friends, how many times have you had the situation where there are random bags of rubbish when leaving a hut, a campsite or road end car park. Smelly, overloaded bags with unidentifiable items all mixed in together. Everyone tries to avoid being the one who has to cram this mess into his or her pack.

So I’d also like to take the opportunity to encourage people to separate out their rubbish in the outdoors just like at home. Keep a small good quality bag for food scraps, this way they are all together in one place, and there are usually not many of them. In another bag keep all the paper, clean plastic and other clean items, and you’ll find that an old bag can be used for these items as they are not dirty or sticky or messy. It’s easy and light to carry out these materials.

That only leaves a few items that need the “red bin” treatment, and having a very small well sealed bag of these items is much easier that mixing it all up with the clean bag mentioned above.

Give it a go and see if it works for you. Remember of course to always “Plan Ahead and Prepare”, reducing in advance the rubbish you will create, and actually have a few spare rubbish bags with you when ever you head off for an adventure!
Richard Wesley (mountaineer, father, LNTNZ board member)