BUILT ENVIRONMENT
A greener way of living: residents of the eco-neighbourhood and opposite, children out and about
Earthsong: urban living the sustainable way
Community values are at the heart of an eco-neighbourhood in New Zealand that offers an enviable way of living with its proactive recycling and waste minimisation initiatives. Katie Coyne reports
ith a 63% recycling rate, New Zealand’s Earthsong eco-neighbourhood in Waitakere, greater Auckland, has an enviable reputa- tion. What’s more, the 63% figure only includes refuse collected by the local council and does not factor in that residents also organise for them- selves the recycling of plastic bags, fluorescent light bulbs, and batteries as well as composting food waste on-site. The eco-community also produces significantly less waste in the first place. Of the 32 Earthsong homes, the average weekly refuse waste (going to landfill) per household is 2.80kg. This compares with a 9.61kg average per Waitakere household from homes outside of Earthsong. These figures comes from Waitakere City Council’s audit carried out last year, which found that Earthsong residents’ waste comprises 38% recyclable paper and cardboard, 25% mixed recycling – including glass and plastics 1 to 7 – and 37% rubbish. “We certainly didn’t have a waste minimisation written plan, because that’s not how Earthsong works. We work from our vision statement and various principles and try not to have lots of rules,” says resident Helen Haslam. “We wanted to be a model for sustainable development so we built into that idea that we would ‘live lightly’ on the earth, which would include waste minimisation.”
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There is no in-depth recycling strategy mapped out at Earthsong. A recycling area big enough for a truck to back into
8 Local Authority Waste & Recycling April 2011
and room enough for recycling bins was incorporated into the design, and there was never any question that there would be on-site composting, worm farms and Bokashi system. But other than that, there was no big plan. An improved recycling rate was a benefit of working with the broader picture of sus- tainability in mind.
Haslam first became aware of the project in 1993 when as a Waitakere City councillor, she was asked to help find land for Earthsong to be built on. Haslam was so impressed with the project that she eventually bought a house in the community where she has been living for the past eight years.
Communal dining
Construction has been a long process. The build started in 2000 and the first 17 houses were ready in 2002. A further seven houses were finished at the end of 2004. But it took until 2008 for the completion of the eight remaining houses and the common house, which includes a communal kitchen and dining area – residents share a common meal twice a week – laundry facilities, a children’s playroom and an area for teenagers.
Listening to residents talk about how the Earthsong eco-
neighbourhood was established is exhilarating, but also exhausting. There were so many set-backs and difficulties that had to be resolved. It took five years of planning just to get to the building stage – and four years of preliminary infor-
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