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In the US, plastic shopping bags and buing water in plastic 12-packs are still the norm. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)
In the US, plastic shopping bags and buing water in plastic 12-packs are still the norm. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

SocietyDecember 12, 2022

We aren’t perfect on plastic, but living in the US shows me how far NZ has come

In the US, plastic shopping bags and buing water in plastic 12-packs are still the norm. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)
In the US, plastic shopping bags and buing water in plastic 12-packs are still the norm. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

Attempting to be more sustainable at this time of year can feel like a losing battle. But at least we’re trying, writes Emma Ricketts.

It’s time to dig out the Christmas decorations, untangle the lights and ignite the barbecue. It’s the season for work parties, family gatherings and dessert stomachs.

It is also the season to be reminded to celebrate sustainably. Every year around this time our feeds are inundated with waste-free ways to wrap presents and reminders to avoid the plastic plate aisle at the supermarket. But as the inevitable stress of this hectic season bears upon us, it is easy to lose the sustainable spirit.

Will it really matter if I buy some disposable plates? It would save me having to wash every one in my kitchen. Between 2019 and 2021 Coca-Cola increased its use of newly made plastic by almost 100,000 metric tons – how can a pack of 12 plates compare?

It’s so much quicker to pick up wrapping paper at the supermarket than rifle through my recycling for something to parcel my presents in. Is it worth the effort, when the US produces more than 3.5 times the plastic waste per capita than OECD countries in Oceania?

Earlier this year, I experienced my own crisis of conscious over these questions.

Living in New Zealand, I took pride in trying to reduce my environmental footprint as much as possible. I took notice of the most common items in my rubbish bin and replaced them with reusable options. I carried my keep cup everywhere. I ate my lunch off plates and cutlery provided by my office. I avoided printing unless it was an absolute necessity.

Then six months ago, I moved to the US and was immediately confronted by that country’s voracious demand for single-use plastic.

Plastic waste is a problem worldwide, and the US is a primary contributor (Photo: Getty Images)

New Zealanders throw away an estimated 159 grams of plastic per day. We are currently one of the top 10 per-capita producers of landfill waste in the world.

Americans, on the other hand, produced approximately 385 grams of plastic waste per day in 2021, according to a report authored by Beyond Plastics and Last Beach Cleanup. During holiday periods, this can increase by up to 25%.

Reading these figures was one thing; but seeing the prevalence of disposable plastic in real life has floored me.

Here in Washington DC I am yet to see a keep cup used in a cafe. While their absence may be partially attributable to the pandemic, a 2019 survey found that 63% of Americans stated they would never use a reusable cup when buying coffee.

The office where I study only offers disposable cups, plates and cutlery for people to use. Takeaway lunch options invariably come in single-use containers. Disposable water bottles are common, particularly at events.

While New Zealand has phased out single-use shopping bags, they’re still readily accessible here. A five-cent fee does little to deter shoppers from using them.

This is not to say that New Zealand is perfect – we have a long way to go. New Zealand’s recycling facilities fall far short of the plastic waste we produce, and an estimated 252,000 tonnes of plastic is dumped in landfills each year. But taking individual steps to reduce my footprint felt far more accessible when I was at home. It felt like I was moving with the current as we all tried to be a little less wasteful; here, it’s like swimming against the tide.

KeepCup founder Abigail Forsyth with her instantly recognisable products. (Photo: Supplied/RNZ)

Holiday season is already underway in the US. Halloween and Thanksgiving are behind us, and Christmas is fast approaching.

I am yet to be confronted with reminders to reduce, reuse and recycle during the festive season. Instead, the holidays seem to provide endless opportunities to market single-use goods.

Halloween, unsurprisingly, is supported enthusiastically by confectionery companies. Chocolates and lollies that usually come wrapped in a single large piece of plastic are made smaller. These are wrapped in several smaller pieces of plastic, which in turn is sold inside a larger piece of plastic. And on top of that – as any New Zealander who’s visited the US knows – the chocolate doesn’t even taste that good.

Then there’s Thanksgiving which, like Christmas, is a time for social gatherings and indulgence. The uptick in cooking leads to longer supermarket lists, and an increase in the packaging that comes with it.

For those opting for convenience, disposable plates, cups and utensils are marketed as vital time-savers. Pre-made food comes in hard-to-recycle plastic and polystyrene containers, some of which would be banned under New Zealand’s latest plastic regulations.

Seeing the amount of single-use plastic used here, it’s easy to question whether there’s any point in New Zealand, whose population is just 1.5% of the United States’, even trying to be more sustainable.

Our government has pledged to phase out many single-use plastic products by 2025, including tableware, straws and PVC packaging. But what difference will that make when Americans are said to use 500 million straws a day?

Once I got over my initial despair, I landed on a more hopeful note.

The problem of plastic pollution can only be solved with teamwork. It may feel like a mammoth, insurmountable task, but we have to start somewhere.

In New Zealand, we already have the messaging down. There is no shortage of reminders to be mindful with shopping, wrapping gifts and preparing food this Christmas.

From what I have witnessed, New Zealand has experienced a cultural shift that has not yet reached the US. Carrying your keep cup and trusty Sistema to buy takeaway coffees and lunches is widely considered a normal thing to do. Most businesses happily oblige.

The ban on single-use plastic shopping bags in 2019 prompted some grumbling, but reusable quickly became the norm.

It is rare to see a fridge in New Zealand filled with disposable bottles of water. Reusable drink bottles come in colours that are way more fun.

We aren’t perfect, but my time away from home has led me to appreciate the progress that New Zealanders have made. I’m looking forward to returning home one day and rediscovering my lower-plastic habits. With Christmas just around the corner, it’s a good time to remember that our achievements matter, and they are something to be proud of.

In the meantime, I’ll keep bringing my own cutlery to the office here in DC – and missing the hand-warming benefits of a coffee in a glass keep cup.

Keep going!
Multidisciplinary artist Moe Laga photographed in Ema Tavola’s South Auckland garage by Tanu Gago (Supplied)
Multidisciplinary artist Moe Laga photographed in Ema Tavola’s South Auckland garage by Tanu Gago (Supplied)

SocietyDecember 11, 2022

In celebration of my South Auckland garage

Multidisciplinary artist Moe Laga photographed in Ema Tavola’s South Auckland garage by Tanu Gago (Supplied)
Multidisciplinary artist Moe Laga photographed in Ema Tavola’s South Auckland garage by Tanu Gago (Supplied)

In response to Chris Luxon’s comment about potential gang members ‘sitting in a garage in South Auckland’, artist-curator Ema Tavola shares some photos of people who visited her own garage over the years.

All photos courtesy of Ema Tavola  / VunilagiVou except where indicated.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon is my MP; I’ve just moved to East Tāmaki, a stone’s throw from Ōtara, South Auckland heartland. Luxon’s Botany electorate includes a pretty substantial chunk of Ōtara, a suburb well known for its strong and youthful working class, predominantly Pacific population. I’ve lived most of my adult life in South Auckland, moving here from Fiji to study, and staying for the opportunities in the arts and culture sector. Having studied and worked here, run Fresh Gallery Ōtara (2006-2012) and taught at Manukau Institute of Technology, Ōtara has been the epicentre of my creative practice, and my service back to the community through the arts.

Before moving to Luxon’s Botany electorate, I lived for almost 20 years in a family home in Papatoetoe, the garage of which was a site for Pacific art parties, talanoa, painting, scheming, haircuts, tattoos, photoshoots and later converted to an art gallery.

While most of Luxon’s position on crime, gangs and punishment is glaringly out-of-touch, conveniently overlooking the inextricable and undeniable connections between poverty, systemic inequality and structural racism, it’s his casual stereotyping that can get right in the bin. It is perhaps hardest to swallow when watching a conversation between two Pākehā men in suits discussing youth criminality and how “we” stop “them” from joining gangs in the first place.

Luxon was interviewed by Chris Lynch on December 1 about crime, the health system and nursing. When asked about how National would prevent youth crime, Luxon said: “If you’re sitting in a garage in South Auckland with your two brothers and you’re thinking about life and where you’re going, consciously or unconsciously, the gang life looks pretty attractive.”

The clip was posted on Instagram this week and commentary from Māori, Pacific and South Aucklanders across social media has been gloriously savage.

There are so many resources Luxon could reference to help him craft better narratives, but he could start with South Auckland academic Dr Belinda Borell’s work on white privilege and structural racism. And while Luxon’s words are simply characteristic of his party’s steadfast commitment to the systems that centre and privilege Pākehā men, I felt compelled to tweet into the abyss: don’t EVER come for our garages!

The South Auckland garage that I’ve known and loved for most of my adult life has been a place of safety and sanctuary, deep creativity and transformation.

In 2002, Tongan painter Samiu Napa’a painted an oil on linen work in the garage entitled Homies. It went on to be shown at Fresh Gallery Ōtara, where Napa’a showed paintings made in this garage on multiple occasions, in addition to working on commissioned portraits.

Award-winning artist and co-founder of FAFSWAG, Tanu Gago MNZM started making photographic portraiture in this garage. His work Daniel (2012), made with South Auckland photographer Vinesh Kumaran, has been exhibited widely and was purchased by the Auckland Art Gallery for the exhibition Home:AKL. Tanu Gago went on to become an Arts Laureate and a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

In 2020, a group of friends and colleagues formed an informal collective of South Auckland-based arts managers and producers called Tū Tonu. We had a common commitment to supporting the participation, development and growth of the intergenerational Moana (Māori and Pacific) communities we are part of, and we are all proud to call South Auckland home. Our meetings in the garage were so incredibly inspiring. In this picture, there are three members of the New Zealand Order of Merit, public servants, teachers and artists. All brown, in a garage, in South Auckland.

Photo by Iokapeta Magele-Suamasi

This humble South Auckland garage was also the setting for this exquisite series of portraits by Moe Laga. Behold… a South Aucklander… in contemplation, in a garage.

Learn more about Moe Laga, this amazing multidisciplinary artist and performer here.

Artist: Moe Laga, Photographer: Tanu Gago

But it wasn’t all award-winning art making. The garage was where numerous event banners came to life, a huge and undocumented economy in the creative ecology of South Auckland. I made this one while at home with a one-year-old while her father, a South Aucklander, was out getting a logistics qualification to later become a shipping agent and not a gang member.

Just to really problematise the misconception of brown people in garages in South Auckland, here’s four photos of VunilagiVou 2.0, the garage gallery fitted out by Ōtara-based artist Sean Kerrigan, where we hosted politicians and scholars, discussed historical portraiture and provenance and held weekly yoga and meditation classes.

Our first visitor to Vunilagi Vou 2.0: Greens co-leader Marama Davidson, left
Portrait of Norman Kirk by Johanna Van Massop
Me with MahMah Timoteo and David Garcia, PhD candidates from the University of Canterbury, discussing their doctoral research, May 2021
$5 Yoga and meditation class with Samoan instructor Gamo Farani-Tomlin

Last year, our family house was sold and the last artwork I made was an ode to the garage. This was one of three fleece blankets printed with digital collages inspired by tarot card design and referencing the shift from this house into the unknown. This was the first of the set; the series was commissioned by The Community Reading Room for an exhibition called “Volumes: Bodies of Knowledge” for Metro Arts in Brisbane.

But wait there's more!