Pop-Up Bottle Drive a success

On 29 September 2019 Grey Lynn 2030 Waste Away ran a POP UP BOTTLE DRIVE at the Grey Lynn Farmer’s Market, where locals brought their cans, glass and plastic containers for a cash refund.

The event was held in collaboration with The Kiwi Bottle Drive and followed the announcement of a container deposit scheme by Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage just a few days earlier.

Organiser and Grey Lynn 2030 Co-Chair, Brigitte Sistig, said “We invited the community to come out to the Pop-Up Bottle Drive, be inspired, and tackle waste in Aotearoa New Zealand – starting from their own home or business.”

Brigitte’s team talked to market visitors how to make a submission to the Government’s Proposed Priority Product Stewardship scheme, and handed out 120 cue cards with links and information about how to make a submission to the scheme, which subsequently closed on 4 October.

“The public is ready to engage in reducing the waste mountain in New Zealand, and we need the Government to put initiatives in place which support people’s desire to take care of our beautiful environment as part of addressing the climate crisis.”

A container deposit scheme is just one part of a wider zero waste approach being promoted. Many of us will remember the bottle drives that happened in our childhood. This is the same idea extended out to a large range of products, and schemes for management of these are called ‘mandatory product stewardship’.