No More Tips or Dumps

Introduction 

Ever looked closely at what you consume? How much do you know about the 5 R's - reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, and residual management? Some of the 5 R's are a matter of personal responsibility and good citizenship. Some of them are carried out by organisations who nowadays follow strict 21st century environmental practices on a large scale. On this 2018 field trip you will find out more about the 5 R's when you follow Waste Management's Auckland operations that include recycling and Redvale, New Zealand's largest facility, which combines waste management and energy production in its landfill. 

rv181-intro-video.mp4 from LEARNZ on Vimeo.

• Meet Andrew - LEARNZ field trip teacher
  

Location

Redvale Landfill and Energy Park is located 30 kilometres from Auckland CBD. It is on the site of an old lime quarry. Half of the Auckland region's domestic, commercial and industrial waste ends up at Redvale, and it receives waste from many other parts of both the North and South Island. Redvale's capture of landfill gas for use in power generation has helped make it an innovative, award winning facility.

Travel day: Join Andrew and the ambassadors as they make their way to Auckland to begin the field trip. During the journey, Andrew takes the chance to photograph and talk about some of the interesting features of the trip.

• Read the diary about the travel day from Kerikeri to Auckland to begin the No More Tips or Dumps virtual field trip. 
• Check out the ambassador updates.

Tuesday 20 March

Theme for today: Inputs - Take a look around the landfill to get your bearings. Take a closer look at recyclables, and find out how you can become a more resposible consumer to reduce our landfill inputs.

• Read today's diary for a look at some of the features of the landfill, as well as some discussion about what it takes to be a responsibile recycler and consumer.
• Listen to a recording of today's web conference.
• Watch the videos for Tuesday.
• Check out the ambassadors to see what they got up to day.

Theme for today: Landfill Processes - managing rainwater, leachate, landfill gas (LFG) production, plus capturing and utilising LFG for renewable energy.

• Read today's diary about how rainwater, leachate, and landfill gas is collected and managed.
• Listen to a recording of today's web conference.
• Watch the videos for Wednesday.
• Check out the ambassadors to see what they learned about their day.

Theme for today: Outputs - sustainable electricity and powering electric vehicle's, odour control, eggplants, plus visit a school next door to the landfill.

• Read today's diary about an electric-powered waste vehicle, an eggplant grower, some local enviro-students, and how smells from the landfill are minimised.
• Listen to a recording of today's web conference.
• Watch the videos for Thursday.
• Check out the ambassadors and read their thoughts from today's activities.

The LEARNZ Team think that joining the NZASE and staying connected through the NZ Science Teacher will help you become a better teacher of science.

Meet the field trip ambassadors

Field trip participants shared the Boomerang Bags website - where volunteers from all walks of life get together to make re-useable ‘boomerang bags’ using recycled materials, as a means to provide a sustainable alternative to plastic bags.