Jamal Muavae and his family are doing their bit to divert rubbish from ending up in the tip at the Onehunga community recycling centre.
“People bring in what they think is waste and we go through it all, sort all the materials and sort what we can recycle, what we can re-use and what we can repurpose,” he says.
Muavae is the general manager at Onehunga Zero Waste, the first Pasifika-Māori led centre of this kind in Aotearoa. Since opening in 2022 they’ve been upcycling scraps to save it from piling up in the landfill.
“Old furniture, bric-a-brac, broken items that they probably can’t use anymore but yeah lots of items that they think is waste for them could be treasure for someone else.”
They’re the items of yesteryear, objects that have either been discarded or donated by the public now getting a second chance thanks to this local initiative.
Jamal’s father, Ron Muavae is the company director and he says it’s crucial the community is involved in helping to come up with a solution to deal with the huge waste problem.
“We are creatures of creating waste and we are running out of room and we just want to… the word that comes to mind is kaitiaki you know, be good guardians of the land.”
The Muavae family has taken on the responsibility to serve the community out of their site at 37 Victoria Street, Onehunga which was once a major rubbish dump. Now it’s a place for Jamal’s brother Jayden Muavae to make a meaningful difference.
“Sorting is a very big task here. We have our dedicated sorting crew but everyone helps out where they can because it can get a bit overwhelming especially on our weekend where we tend to get a lot of traffic flow,” he adds.
The team have also turned trash into cash by selling preloved products at their ‘Reuse Store’ and even donating them back to the community.
A customer and her two children are making the most of the variety of products. “Considering the cost of everything going up being able to access something more affordable is a big bonus,” the young mum said.
This is one of 13 centres in the region where people are bringing life back to unwanted goods. Gayle Katene aka Nan is a reuse specialist so she helps restore some of the textiles they receive.
“If you get material, part of it would be stained, it’s a shame to throw the brand-new part away so we cut that away and then we make something out of it, maybe a cushion or curtains if we get big fabric’ a lot of things that we can do,” Katene says.
Their goal is to create a circular economy for a sustainable future and help families save money.
Ron says consumers aren’t helping the cause as they still prefer to buy new.
“Nowadays convenience, (it’s) a lot easier for people and sometimes even cheaper to go buy brand new as you all know but you’ll be amazed at what this sort of savings you can make by just finding stuff already been made and just repurposing it and re-using that stuff saving a bit of money.”
The community hub is also a place of learning where Jamal is passionate about running workshops for locals to up skill on the environmental message.
“I think back to our ancestors as being really resourceful people and we lived off the land and we knew how to tend to the land which is important for us so that’s our focus here, it’s reclaiming what was lost.”
