The Rubbish Trip

Hannah Blumhardt and Liam Prince are the No-Waste Nomads behind The Rubbish Trip - a roaming zero waste roadshow delivering FREE talks to schools, businesses and communities about the hows and whys of reducing household rubbish. Our talks are based on our own experience of living, since the beginning of 2015, with no rubbish bin.

We kicked off the North Island leg of our tour at the beginning of Plastic Free July 2017. This runs for 6 months and we are currently half way through. So far, we have delivered over 50 talks, presentations and workshops to over 2000 people across 6 different regions.

During our journey we also develop regional zero waste shopping guides to help individuals find low-waste options in their communities. We publish these to our website. Alongside this, we also record podcast interviews that share the stories of local initiatives, whether waste reducing or otherwise, which have inspired us.

We have been running The Rubbish Trip off the funds raised from a previous crowdfund (a budget of $10 a day each for 6 months). We are now fundraising, for the same budget, for the South Island leg of our trip, which is due to start in January 2018 and run until Plastic Free July 2018.

If you are passionate about waste reduction and believe in spreading awareness and education about how and why New Zealanders can reduce their waste footprint, please consider chipping in to help us continue this mahi!

BACKGROUND

At the beginning of 2015, we started living zero waste, spurred by concern about the sheer amount of plastics in the oceans; the staggering levels of energy and inefficiency associated with producing and managing disposable products; and how our throwaway, high-consumption culture is shaping community mindsets and living spaces.

Motivated to spread awareness, in Plastic Free July 2016 we began running workshops and presentations for community groups, schools, businesses and households about how to reduce rubbish, and why it is important.

After countless people told us that we had inspired them to reduce their waste footprint, we felt we could make a real difference by stepping things up a notch... and so began The Rubbish Trip!

In Plastic Free July 2017, we launched the North Island leg of The Rubbish Trip. Originally we had planned to travel the entire country in 6 months (yes, very naive). Since being on the road, we have decided that a year is much more realistic, with 6 months for the north and 6 months for the south. So, we are seeking funds to allow us to get to the South Island. We are sticking to our budget of $10 a day each, which has turned out to be manageable!

WE NEED YOU!

Your donations help us keep these talks FREE, so that as many people as possible can be inspired to reduce their waste footprint.

While we do not want to charge people to attend, the tour does entail costs for us. We like to demonstrate what is possible on a zero waste lifestyle by offering zero waste kai to our attendees, and bringing along materials for workshops (such as ingredients for making zero waste household products, toiletries, arts and crafts etc.). We also need funds for transport (though we mostly cycle, we do drive between main centres). Finally, we require a bit of money to sustain us each day (i.e. food!) so that we can focus on presentations rather than survival! We keep our costs low by cycling, and staying with kind hosts along the way.

Based on our journey in the North Island, we know we can cover the costs of this project, and our own daily needs, with a budget of roughly $10 each a day. For the both of us, that's $140-150 a week. Our crowdfunding target is based on this calculation for a time period of 6 months.

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