Closed-loop living for Kiwi homes: raingardens, compost, greywater and the systems where water, soil and waste feed each other instead of going to waste. What’s best for the planet, done the New Zealand way.
Solarpunk imagines renewable energy running loops that look after water, soil and food. Here’s where the idea came from, what Māori ideas about land add to it, and the New Zealand projects already doing it.
Rain, food scraps, shower water and nutrients all leave the average Kiwi section as waste. Here’s how to send them back into your soil instead, one loop at a time, with NZ examples, NZ-made gear and honest limits.
Sponge cities give rain somewhere to go before it reaches a pipe. Here’s how New Zealand is doing it, from Greenslade Reserve and Te Auaunga to the Avon red zone and Napier’s Ahuriri wetland, and what a household can do on its own section.
Rain tanks, solar pumps, biochar, tank sensors, aquaponics, biogas and compost-heated greenhouses, judged honestly on what they do for the planet and what they cost a New Zealand household in money and effort.
A composting toilet saves drinking water and returns nutrients to the land. Here’s how they work, why 12 months of composting is the benchmark, the tikanga around human waste, and the NZ-made and Australian options with honest prices.
Shower, bath and laundry water can keep fruit trees and shrubs going through a dry New Zealand summer. Here’s how to use greywater safely for your soil and plants, from a free bucket to a plumbed diverter, with NZ suppliers and honest limits.
New Zealand soils run short of phosphorus, and the country ships it in as mined rock. Here’s where it comes from, how much of it a household throws away in scraps and urine, and the safe, respectful ways to keep those nutrients on your own section.
Compost bin, worm farm or bokashi bucket? How each one turns New Zealand food scraps back into soil, which NZ makers to buy from, where to get free workshops and half-price gear, and how to keep rats out.
The right native plants turn a raingarden from a muddy hollow into a living water filter. Here’s what survived ten years of trials at Auckland Botanic Gardens, what Christchurch recommends, and what to avoid.
A raingarden catches the water off your roof and lets the soil and plants clean it before it reaches a stream. Here’s how to build one on a New Zealand section, clay soil included, with native plants and honest costs.
