Go Eco, 25A Devon Road, Frankton, Hamilton (2026)

11/10/2026

CLIMATE HUI SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT - Reegan Tata, Community Connector and Youth Worker at Western Community Centre in Hamilton.

As a small community organisation that provides 101 different services, Reegan and the WCC team do incredibly well to build climate resilience into their operation at every opportunity.

Much of the climate resilience work at WCC is focused on reducing waste. Worm farms and composting reduce the amount of food waste going to landfill, reducing emissions and saving on waste transport costs.

The compost is used on the WCC gardens and fruit trees, reducing fertiliser use.
WCH’s kai gardens also feed locals and excess fruit is made into pickles and jams, another means of reducing food waste.

They are big on recycling and reuse, including furniture and materials, which reduces costs and waste to landfill and ultimately greenhouse gas emissions.

The WCH team have also planted thousands of fruit trees in public spaces and home gardens.

An ex-MSD case manager, Reegan grew up attending WCC children's programmes.

“Everything that is accessible to the public creates opportunities to enhance the holistic wellbeing of the people in our community and I am the product of what we provide.”

Climate Hui: Empowering Climate Resilience Communities
When: October 21, 9.30am-1pm
Where: Pukete Neighbourhood House
RSVP: goeco.org.nz/climatehui
It's free!

10/10/2026

Rescued food doesn't move itself.

Every week, local supermarkets and food businesses set aside surplus food so it stays out of landfill. Our Food Rescue team collects it, sorts it, and drives it across Kirikiriroa to the people and places that use it.

Demand has kept climbing, and every kilometre costs more to drive than it used to. So we're really grateful to Simplicity for a grant that keeps us on the road. In their words, it's about "backing you to keep it up," and we intend to.

It takes a whole chain to keep good food out of landfill: the businesses who donate, the funders who back the logistics, and the groups who put it to use. Ngā mihi nui to everyone in it.

Huge mihi to Simplicity.

07/10/2026

We're stoked to have chef/owner Lisa Quarrie from Hayes Common and Common Compost, and Reegan Tata, a Community Connector and Youthworker from Western Community Centre , speaking at our climate resilience hui!

Come and hear how their businesses are responding to climate change and sustainability challenges.

When: October 21
Where: Pukete Neighbourhood House, Hamilton
RSVP: goeco.org.nz/events-hui

It's free!

06/10/2026

“I am seeing people out in areas that we haven’t had boots on the ground before." - - Wendy Ambury from Love Bittern

"That is exactly what we want to see - that level of growth and engagement increasing so that people are connected to their wetlands and connected to bittern (matuku-hūrepo) as the ambassador or flagship species for wetlands.”

Heat map data from week one of The Great Matuku-Hūrepo Muster (see photos) backs Wendy’s sense that turnout for the third year of the muster is promising:

87 groups were out recording the calls of the matuku-hūrepo between September 18-27.

The activity is hottest in the North Island, because this is where the matuku-hūrepo are most active now. Things will get busier in the lower North Island and South Island in the final two weeks of the muster (Oct 23-Nov 1 and Nov 20-29).

Ahead of the muster Go Eco held a jam-packed week of muster training and wetland workshops so volunteers knew not only how to identify and record the mating call booms of the male matuku-hūrepo, but why the wetland habitat of this critically-endangered bird matters to humans as well.

At Napinapi Marae near Piopio, our workshop was supported by Te Kura Taiao o te Nehenehenui and focused on developing the mahi that mana whenua and hapuu Ngaati Paratekawa and Ngāti Rāhurahu already have underway in their wetland.

They’ve worked with scientists to assess the state of their repo, and already do a lot of forest trapping and work with kōkako, so our trapper Greg Townsend ran a session on predator control in wetlands, and how that differs from trapping in forests.

Most of the people at our Wetland Walk & Talk at Lake Rotopiko, near Ohāupo, had never heard of the muster, much less the matuku-hūrepo and how close it is to extinction, so we’re excited to think we’ve converted more than 30 or so new volunteers to the matuku cause.

Kura are a great place to kick-start community involvement and Go Eco educator Paul Murray said the response “was awesome” from the classes at Te Kura o Rangiriri, Te Aroha College and Morrinsville Intermediate.

Wendy likes to say that it takes a community to save a species, so it’s important that these workshops and training sessions bring together hapuu, community, catchment groups, volunteers and kura for a specific kaupapa, and that what they learn is immediately applicable to their own specific place or restoration project.

In the next year of this WRC-funded project, we’ll hold more of these kinds of events, centred on wetland or catchment, and with the people doing the work, and a few experts, all gathered together.

To stay up to date on this mahi, and to hear from the people deep in the day-to-day work of reviving wetlands in the Waikato, sign up to our new wetland newsletter at: goeco.org.nz/wetlands

06/10/2026

Six weeks ago, this compost was school lunches.

On 18 August, close to a tonne of school lunch scraps arrived at the garden. We mixed it with wood chip, dropped it into our compost bays all at once, and left the microbes to it.

"By processing a large amount all at once rather than adding a little at a time, we were able to hot compost it and turn it into compost in just a few weeks," says Michael, who leads our composting mahi.

A big batch holds the heat the microbes make, and by week four the core of the heap hit 72.6°C. That heat breaks scraps down fast and knocks out w**d seeds and pathogens.

Six weeks on, close to a tonne of food scraps has become close to a tonne of compost, made locally and heading back into the whenua to feed the māra kai.

This is our first batch of community compost from school lunches, and there's more to come.

Turn the sound up for the crunch.

05/10/2026

“What I'm really wanting to do with my research is to listen to the land and the people — to truly listen before we go in and roll out an expansive restoration for restiad bogs or just peatlands in general — and to listen to the people who are living with these ecosystems and not making a judgement on what is right or wrong.”

The University of Waikato PhD student Rahel Bauerdick lights up when she talks about peatlands: these threatened ecosystems cover just 3% of the earth's surface, but sequester more carbon than all of the world's forests combined and store 30% of the world's terrestrial carbon.

About half of Aotearoa’s peatlands are in the Waikato and as concern about the unwanted impacts of peat drainage, including greenhouse gas emissions, land subsidence, and biodiversity loss increases, so do conversations about the potential for restoration.

Rahel says restoration is as much a social undertaking as it is a physical one, and that this is especially notable in peatlands, “a landscape deeply embedded in human lives and culture”.

Her research, and in particular her work recording the lived experience of people connected to peatland, is the first to feature in Go Eco’s new wetland newsletter.

Sign up for the newsletter at goeco.org.nz/wetlands and get regular updates on the people and hapori working to restore these precious ecosystems, as well practical restoration resources and opportunities to get involved.

04/10/2026

Scott's officially open for business, and he's taking what your kerbside recycling won't (payment in 👍🏼).

Pukete, meet your new drop-off point. Pukete Neighbourhood House has opened its Zero Waste Kirikiriroa Community Drop-off Point. It's a place for the resources that can't go in your kerbside recycling.

What you can drop off:

🔋 Batteries | Pūhiko
🎧 E-waste | Ipara
(Small items like remotes. Larger items like TVs can go to Lincoln Road).
🧴 Soft plastics | Kirihou ngohengohe
👕 Textiles | Papanga
🫙 Lids | Taupoki

All items need to be clean and dry.

Pukete Community Centre.
43 Church Road, Pukete, Hamilton.
Drop-off hours: 7am-6pm, weekdays.

Ngā mihi nui to Scott and the team at Pukete Neighbourhood House for hosting, and to Hamilton City Council for making this partnership with our community happen.

01/10/2026

Rob's ready for your lids, batteries and cords. Are you?

Hamilton East, meet your new drop-off point. : Hamilton East Community House has opened its Zero Waste Kirikiriroa Community Drop-off Point. It's a place for the resources that can't go in your kerbside recycling.

What you can drop off:

🔋 Batteries | Pūhiko
Yes. Household lithium batteries.
No. Batteries that are damaged, swollen, leaking or hot, or that have an odd smell. You'll need to take these directly to The Resource Recovery Centre on Lincoln Road.

🎧 E-waste | Ipara
Yes. Cords, mobile phones, remotes, tablets, laptops, headphones, iPods and MP3 players.
No. Larger items like whiteware and TVs. Lincoln Road can take these.

🧴 Soft plastics | Kirihou ngohengohe
Yes. Clean and dry bread bags, salad and frozen food bags, cereal bags, snack bags, chip packets, courier packs, bubble wrap.
No. Compostable packaging.

👕 Textiles | Papanga
Yes. Clean t-shirts, dresses, skirts, pants, jackets, pyjamas, socks, sheets, pillowcases, towels, curtains, fabric scraps.
No. Clothes still good enough to sell, or rehome.

🫙 Lids | Taupoki
Yes. Plastic lids (1, 2 + 5) and metal lids.

Waimarie: Hamilton East Community House, 53 Wellington Street, Hamilton East.
Drop-off hours: 9-4pm, weekdays.

Ngā mihi nui to Rob and the team at Waimarie for hosting, and to Hamilton City Council for making this partnership with our community happen.

Go Eco

11/10/2026

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