Summer is ramping up and alongside it comes an abundance of events that create waste.

Tūtūkākā Twilight Markets organiser Jo Roberts wants to see this summer’s events reduce their waste.

With the help of Whangārei District Council (WDC), Eco Solutions, her local community and ‘Waste Wizard’ bins, she’s curated an environmentally friendly initiative that has already made a difference.

Roberts is on a mission to create less than one wheelie bin of rubbish per market, and after her first market of the season managed to divert 86 per cent of waste from landfill, that is her benchmark. They also collected 50kg of compost, which was taken to a community garden in Ngunguru.

The accomplishment comes after Roberts last year applied to the waste minimisation fund at WDC, proposing a sorting station for her popular events.

She received funding for three ‘Waste Wizard’ bins, paid staff, and a gazebo where rubbish can be sorted.

“As well as reducing the waste, a big part of the project is public education,” she said.

Visitors at the events can now see staff turning the rubbish into “clean rubbish”, where waste is sorted between compost with no plastic contamination, recycling, and landfill rubbish.

“If we can have the same system at every event in Whangārei, when people go to the event, they expect to see that system, and then hopefully that behaviour will transfer to them at home,” she said.

Roberts wants to see “conscious event waste for the good of our planet,” further stating,
“It’s about encouraging large-scale events to think about how they can reduce their footprint.”

Roberts organises Tūtūkākā Twilight Markets, the Matapōuri Gala, Ngunguru Gala, and this year will be helping operate the WDC ‘Christmas in the Park’.

Her hope is that the 10,000+ attendees will learn about waste reduction with the help of eight paid staff and six volunteers at the waste station.

Roberts encourages visitors at any events to bring along their keep cups and cutlery, which will divert even more from landfill.

“The really cool thing is that we are trying to implement reusable culture,” she said, “It’s just like we remember to bring our supermarket bags now.”

The Tūtūkākā Twilight Market is on this weekend from 4.30 pm to 8pm at the marina.