About GetReal

GetReal is a group of smart, educated people who are passionate about Zero Waste and all things sustainable. We want to move up the triangle to reducing and reusing rather than focusing on recycling.

Who are we?

GetReal has grown out of Wanaka Wastebusters. Wanaka Wastebusters was started in 1999 with a mission: We wanted to make the most of the resources that were being wasted in our rubbish, protect our environment, create meaningful work and improve the well being of our community.

We started by building our own recycling centre so that everyone in town could recycle if they wanted to. Most of what we handle every year is packaging; cardboard, plastic and glass. We see a lot of poorly designed or deployed packaging coming past.

Why this?

It's time to get real about the impact our lifestyles have on this beautiful land. If we do things that create benefits, then the more we do, the better things will get. We can enjoy having a big footprint instead of feeling guilty about our impact.

Lots of us feel strongly about the impacts we have but we don't always know what we can do to change things. We might not have the time to invest in really getting a handle on the deeper issues involved.

Often the changes need to be made further back up the chain and we feel powerless to create the change that is needed.

What now?

We know we need packaging to keep our food and drinks in. But we want to reduce the amount of packaging coming into the waste stream in the first place. And we really want to make sure we get the chance to choose very sustainable packaging when we go shopping.

After 13 years the Packaging Accord process is coming to an end in June 2009. We have a chance to develop a product stewardship process for packaging (and lots of other products) that builds in sustainability and strong feedback loops that create incentives for great design at the front end.

We can build sustainable products. Our kiwi ingenuity will help us out there. We just need to make sure the right incentives are in place.

How do you get involved?

The GetReal team are going to focus the energy around these issues so we can all have an impact on the decision making process. You can be part of this by joining our campaigns online and telling people about us. If you want to do more email us and tell us about your ideas.