6/06/2006
- New Zealand’s environmental heroes are being
honoured in this year’s Green Ribbon Awards, Environment
Minister David Benson-Pope said today.
“These individuals and groups
have put a great deal of effort into helping sustain,
protect and enhance New Zealand’s unique environment,”
said Mr Benson-Pope.
“They deserve to be recognised
and rewarded for their efforts.”
The announcement of the Green
Ribbon winners coincides with United Nations World
Environment Day and shares a common goal to raise
environmental awareness.
The Green Ribbon Awards have
become an established tribute to the outstanding
contributions that individuals and organisations
make towards the environment.
From a strong list of 61 nominations
this year, seven winners have been selected.
The honours for 2006 include:
A Raglan community’s success in diverting nearly
75 percent of its waste away from landfill.
A Golden Bay brewery café which uses composting
toilets and offers bounties on pests like possums,
rats and stoats.
A Hawke’s Bay high school student’s passion for
a wide-range of outstanding environmental projects.
This is the Green Ribbon Awards’
16th year. During that time 81 winners have been
honoured.
“The work of people like those
honoured tonight is so important. The environment
is integral to our daily lives and the quality
of those lives and protecting it is vital,” said
Mr Benson-Pope.
Background information on 2006
Green Ribbon Award Winners
Xtreme Waste – Whaingaroa
(Winner, Community Action for the Envronment)
Following the close of the Raglan landfill in
1998, the Whaingaroa community, near Raglan, looked
at ways to provide waste management solutions.
Xtreme Waste was set up by a small group of people
as a community recycling programme. It has since
grown to involve the whole community taking responsibility
for their waste.
Xtreme Waste is now diverting
approximately 74 per cent of waste volume from
landfill. It has provided job opportunities for
26 part time employees, established a large recycling
shop, instituted weekly kerbside collection of
recyclables and waste from rural and urban areas,
and developed and implemented an interactive education
strategy with schools and other community groups.
Tonkin and Taylor – Auckland
(Winner, Urban Sustainability)
Environmental and Engineering Consultants, Tonkin
& Taylor, are winners in this year’s Urban
Sustainability category for their work developing
the Auckland City Council’s Seaside Park. The
park is located on a closed landfill at Brady
Road, Otahuhu.
Tonkin & Taylor employed
forward-thinking and effective strategies at the
Seaside Park project which included innovative
overall design for landfill transformation. The
company offered consultation to incorporate public
wishes and concerns into the process.
The project incorporated habitat
preservation and expansion for existing wildlife
populations, and highly advanced, multi-purpose
wetland construction to deal with leachate treatment,
storm water diversion, flood prevention and shore
erosion prevention.
The project took four years
to complete and is an environmental showpiece
for creative and innovative techniques in the
rehabilitation and transformation of closed landfills.
MW Lissette – Hastings
(Winner, Rural Sustainability)
MW Lissette is a road construction and maintenance
company based in Hastings. The company takes notice
of the potential impacts of its road work by making
careful selection of planned routes to ensure
minimum crossing of streams, and makes protection
of unstable slopes and other sensitive areas a
top priority.
MW Lissette avoids unnecessary
earth-moving and construction by building roads
to the narrowest safe width possible. Its projects
also incorporate drainage systems with culverts
planned for the highest expected peak flow. By
minimising sediment and pollutant run-off and
reducing erosion, the impacts on waterways and
surrounding landscapes are significantly reduced.
The level of planning and construction
taken by the company, and the attention to detail
for environmentally sustainable outcomes is commendable
and make them an excellent recipient for a Green
Ribbon Award.
Mussel Inn – Golden Bay
(Winner, Sustainable Business)
The owners of the Mussel Inn brewer and café
in Golden Bay have applied their environmental
ethos to their business from day one.
Jane and Andrew Dixon and their
two sons integrate sustainability into every aspect
of The Mussel Inn from the building materials
used, to sourcing the cooking ingredients locally,
to finding responsible and creative ways of dealing
with the waste they produce, including manufacturing
composting toilets.
The sustainable attitude is
encouraged and supported amongst their staff and
customers to help make the Mussel Inn an excellent
example of a successful sustainable business in
everyday action.
Clean Water Whangamata – Whangamata
(Winner, Caring for Our Water)
Surfer and water campaigner, Paul Shanks, has
committed his time to leading Clean Water Whangamata
to have water quality acknowledged as a top priority
issue in his community.
Driven by his passion for surfing,
Paul has worked with Clean Water Whangamata since
the late 11000’s to commission water testing to
assess the adequacy of local sewerage systems
and to present these issues to local government.
Paul’s work has led to the Thames Coromandel District
Council now looking at proposals to upgrade and
redevelop the local sewerage treatment plant.
Tom Logan – Napier
(Winner, Young People Making A Difference)
Year 10 William Colenso College student Tom Logan’s
passion for the environment has been the driving
force behind many projects carried out at the
Napier secondary school and in the wider community.
Tom established his school’s
enviro-group, now with more than 40 members. The
group holds regular lunchtime meetings where initiatives
like a school vegetable garden and composting
project have been developed and implemented.
Tom and his environmentally
aware group help coordinate tree planting days
at the Hawkes Bay Environmental Education Trust,
and fundraise for tuatara preservation and kiwi
release field trips.
Tom and his William Colenso
College enviro-group are also currently developing
a school-wide recycling programme.
Tom has provided environmental
leadership and inspiration for other students
and is a well-deserved winner of this year’s Green
Ribbon Award for Young People Making a Difference.
Opoho Primary School – Dunedin
(Highly Commended – Young People Making A Difference)
Opoho Primary School of Dunedin is a silver medal
Enviro School, working towards gold status. The
children are involved in every environmental activity
and project that Opoho School has achieved and
the list of activities is huge: recycling paper,
card and plastics; composting and tending a vegetable
garden; creating an Opoho School Envirocode design;
painting fish pollution warnings on all storm
water drains in the community; hosting an enviro-school
hui; and working with Dunedin City Council to
plant, weed and care for Dundas Bush.
If that were not enough, the
students show other schools and interested community
members what they have achieved and help others
to get environmental projects up and running in
their communities.
The children, teachers and Principal
of Opoho School are true leaders and role models
for their community and deserve to be highly commended
in the Young People Making a Difference category
for their work to influence the actions of others
in schools, at home and in the wider community.
