Reuse a Community Affair

Alison Ross has been using the Waste Exchange service since it first began and, thanks to Alison’s lateral thinking, her whole community gets to benefit. 

Alison runs an environmental group in Lyttelton and is secretary of the Quail Island Ecological Restoration Trust. In recent years Alison has collected a variety of items, such as small bench stoves, that she knows may be of use locally. Last year Alison sourced a truckload of irrigation pipe from the Exchange, which a local company kindly collected for her. The pipe was used to water newly planted trees on Quail Island. 

More recently Alison has collected two pallet loads of small salsa and baby food jars (about 9000 in total!). The jars are brand new and in perfect condition, which is ideal for what Alison has in mind. Alison will distribute the jars to various friends and community groups who together comprise an informal network of jam and jelly makers. Members of the local church make jams for fundraising, while Alison herself makes jams and jellies (with fruit donated from friends’ fruit trees) for the City Mission. “We get a lot of stuff from the Waste Exchange and there is a real social benefit social benefit” says Alison. “Jim (Waste Exchange facilitator) is more than helpful. It’s an extremely good service.”