A family of 11 in Māngere removes less than one garbage can a week

A thoughtful lifestyle means that this family of 11 renting in Māngere takes out less than one garbage can a week.

A chance meeting at a job as a bus driver at Waitākere transfer station sparked Koia Teinakore’s interest in zero waste.

After dropping off their passengers at the Zero Waste Zone Learning Center, the father of six and the grandfather of three decided to sit in class instead of waiting on the bus.

“I went home to my wife that night and told her I had a great job,” he said. Then, he made his children throw all the garbage in the house on the ground and take responsibility for everything they had.

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Teinakore brought three other groups to the learning center and participated in each workshop. I was hooked.

“Every time I went on a trip, my eyes widened more and more. My partner Robyn and her colleagues from Kohanga Reo attended one of the workshops, and when we got home we started to think differently about how we had to do it right, take care of Papatūānuku for our tamariki and mokopuna, ”she said.

Kiwis throw away 157,389 tons of perfectly good food each year, a waste of $ 1.17 billion ($ 644 per household).

Teinakore began monitoring his family’s containers. She said that, like most homes, they had a “correct” recycling system, but “the rest” would fill five large garbage bags in a week.

The first change she made was to build each of her children their own set of storage containers in their bedrooms. They took responsibility for sorting their waste before putting it in the household trash, recycling it, soft plastics or compost.

“My youngest kids weren’t really getting it, so we asked them to pull out a bag at the end of the week and we told them the correct place to put each piece of packaging,” Teinakore said.

Now the family often does not have enough garbage to take out the trash and collect it. They do this by buying all of the household staples (such as soap, sugar, and flour) in bulk, as Teniakore’s own mother did, and freezing their food waste to reuse in creative leftovers, such as goulash and soups.

“We don’t have a lot of money anyway, but whatever we can save helps,” he said. “And it is also kind to the environment.”

Changing habits takes a bit of work. “It did not come overnight. It took us a good three years to get it right. “

Teniakore’s passion led him to take a paid role at ME Family Services as a waste minimization facilitator, through which he was able to share his learnings with the wider Māngere / Ōtāhuhu communities in association with the Auckland Council.

He educates church, school, and marae groups about waste, and finds people within those groups who can advocate for the issue. The community organization has kept 14,000 kg of waste material out of the landfill in the last year alone.

The most important thing Teniakore said he has learned so far is that growing food yourself is one of the easiest ways to manage food waste.

Teniakore grew up with large gardens, but had lost touch with the skill in adulthood. Once again, she searched for some free lessons and took the knowledge home with her.

She put winter vegetable seedlings in with her three mokopunas during the last shutdown to teach them that their corn doesn’t come out of a can.

Bokashi containers are a Japanese system that collects waste, unlike traditional composting, where food can be decomposed, suitable for small spaces. Bokashi containers produce a nutrient-rich compost that you can dig right into your garden. Teniakore keeps several of them in the kitchen.

When they are full, everything returns to the ground, along with the waste paper and cardboard. In three months it will be a new load of “beautiful soil” to feed your plants.

“I love gardening with my moko because they are at the age where they really listen,” he jokes. “That is the joy of being a grandfather.”

Te Puna Oranga, a community garden and resource recovery space in Māngere East is now under the care of Teniakore. It is open to the community and provides hands-on learning opportunities for anyone who is interested in finding ways to reuse trash as a resource.

Teniakore said that he does this work because he wants to make sure that the next generations of his family have the knowledge to carry on with the kaupapa.

“When we were younger we were told there was a great bright future ahead. But in my opinion, I’m not sure there is a great bright future unless people change their attitudes and stop destroying the environment. “

“I am not an expert, but I am willing to learn every day.” Next on your personal to-do list is a home water harvesting system.