Research Projects Archives - IAmListening.co.nz: Sheldon Nesdale

How To Fix Tauranga’s Recycling

On this page you will find out:

Why I do, or do not, support each of councils proposals for recycling and waste management
My ideas for vastly reducing our waste to landfill and improving our recycling programmes
Answers to your frequently asked recycling questions

Elect me on to Tauranga City Council and within 18 months my aims are:

To increase the volume of glass recycled by 100% from 2017 levels (this should be easy, and needs little help from me)
To start the construction of an Anaerobic Digestion facility to process the cities food waste for the next 50 years
To mobilise citizens to create a declaration to parliament that we want refundable deposits on beverage containers
To create more transparency on where the items that we think we are recycling ultimately end up
To improve the way we communicate how the financial savings from reducing our waste benefit us all on at a personal (or household) level
To mobilise citizens to petition the manufacturers of their favourite products to make more environmentally friendly packaging choices

Continue reading “How To Fix Tauranga’s Recycling”

32 Ways To Fix Tauranga’s Traffic Congestion

You may be aware by now that I’m a candidate for the Tauranga City Council by-election.

I’m focusing my campaign on a handful of issues. The first of which is Tauranga’s traffic issues.

I have created the following list of 32 ideas to fix Tauranga’s Traffic congestion.

I ask you to share these ideas, debate these ideas, and add to them if you can.

Image credit: SunLive

What can we do as individuals to manage congestion?

Continue reading “32 Ways To Fix Tauranga’s Traffic Congestion”

What Do Our Rates Pay For In Tauranga?

Some of the residents I’ve met with share with me how painful it is to pay their rates invoices.

I understand what they’re saying, it’s painful for me too!

Many of them are on fixed incomes and every dollar counts. They may have assets such as their family home, but those funds are locked away for now and their day-to-day cash-flow is low.

It hurts to pay thousands of dollars every year to the council, and sometimes it feels like we get very little in return.

You may have seen this diagram before, but it’s a wonderful visual way of seeing what our rates are spent on. Continue reading “What Do Our Rates Pay For In Tauranga?”

Kerbside Recycling & Kerbside Rubbish Collection, Should They Be User-Pays Or Rate-Payer Funded?

That is the question that Tauranga City Councillors are looking at right now.

It’s a question that all the councils in New Zealand consider every 6 years as per the Waste Minimisation Act 2008.

Right now, it’s Tauranga’s turn.

tauranga-city-waste-problem

The current arrangement is:

Rubbish collection: User-pays
- Purchase council issued bags as required
- Or, pay 6-monthly / annually for wheely-bins from private contractors
Recycling collection: User-pays
- Optional. Your choice of 4 contractors

Councillors are using the 147 page Joint Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (24Mb .pdf) to inform their discussion.

The most interesting parts of this document were: Continue reading “Kerbside Recycling & Kerbside Rubbish Collection, Should They Be User-Pays Or Rate-Payer Funded?”

Need A Job In Tauranga?

Why are you looking for a new job in Tauranga?

Are you looking to change your career?
Have you just moved to Tauranga from Auckland or elsewhere in NZ (or the world)?

Well, I’ve got good news. I get asked for job hunting advice all the time, so I’ve created the following guide for you.

But first, does your job hunting plan look like this?

Trawl through job ads on Seek, TradeMe Jobs and a couple of other sites
Find jobs that look interesting and throw your CV at them
Wait
And wait some more
And apply for some more (on the assumption that it takes 100 applications to get an interview)
And wait some more

Does it feel like an enormous waste of time?

That’s because it is!

Try this 7 step approach instead. Continue reading “Need A Job In Tauranga?”

6 Examples Of 30,000 Tauranga Treasures Hidden From The Public

I just got back from a visit to the Tauranga Heritage Collection.

It’s a storage facility that cares for a collection of 30,000 uniquely Tauranga items awaiting a museum.

Some of these pieces have been waiting for a home since the Tauranga Museum was first proposed (I’ve heard someone say that was 80 years ago!).

I was privileged to be able to take 4 friends with me today to go and see it.

I see in the visitor book that about 800 people have looked through the collection in the last 6 years.

Surely a museum would be capable of getting 800 people per day?

Here’s what I saw. Continue reading “6 Examples Of 30,000 Tauranga Treasures Hidden From The Public”