The Nelson Environment Centre is the oldest environment center in New Zealand. We were established in 1976 out of a group of like organizations that came together to form an independent not-for-profit whose sole purpose is to help the Nelson-Tasman community live more sustainably.

I don't know if you can see it or not it's cool. Since then we've grown and evolved to over 20 staff across three different locations operating a range of programs and business activities.

This is what we'd sort into the community boxes over here and there we go. Kai Rescue has been set up to divert food from supermarkets that would otherwise be going to landfill and then giving it to people in the communities. We have 52 recipients signed up with us at the moment so they are a range of different services and organizations, some are charities, some are maraes, and we will provide food for them and they can sort of pass it on to who needs it.

I'll see you next week hopefully, maybe? Yeah cool.

We operate an e-waste program that is collecting about a ton of e-waste a month and redirecting it from landfill. We recycle, repurpose and reuse the electronics. We also operate the reuse center and the purpose of this if you've got anything that's too good to throw away bring it down to us and we'll make sure it finds a new home. I've been here 20 years and this place is like my second home.

Everything that we do is connected so whether it's collecting the food scraps from a kai rescue program, putting it into our composting program that then feeds into our regenerative soil program, everything's connected.

The Community Environment Fund enables us to do the good work that we do. It impacts every part of the organization. We have enough materials in the system to keep us going we don't need to dig out more.

What more motivation do you need than that?