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Joe Simmonds, gardening on the Kapiti Coast

Enjoy the Good Life, go Car Free one Sunday per month before 2012.  Participate in this fun, positive response to the Tauranga Oil Spill.  Read on to find out when, how and just how entertaining it can be to slow down and forget fossil fuels for the day.

What: Aotearoa New Zealand has just suffered an oil spill off the coast of Tauranga.  I won’t go into the details, all I’ll say is: it aint pretty, and it’s another reason to for-see that the age of fossil fuels is passing, making way for smarter, cleaner transport options.

Now, let’s cross to Kapiti Coast, North Island, New Zealand.  Earlier this year the Kapiti Coast City Council ran the Greenest Street challenge.  Te Roto Street won it and the number one reason was that they introduced Car-Less days – one day per week.  They kept records and found that they collectively saved $11,333 in fuel costs over one year, which equated to a reduction in CO2 of 13,022,000 grams.  Imagine the difference we could make if hundreds, or even thousands of people took three days out before the end of this year to slow down and go Car Free.

When:  Three Car Free days at the end of each month – Sunday 30th October, Sunday 27th November and Sunday 18th December (the last Sunday of December is Christmas Day, so we won’t go there).

How:  Let’s make it simple and get back to the basics on those days: Gardening, baking, bottling, jam making, neighbourly chats, reading, perhaps leisurely strolls around the neighbourhood, maybe some Frocks on Bikes action, morning and afternoon teas with friends, maybe some long over due house maintenance, long chats about stuff we’ve been waiting to find the time to chat about, it might be time to shoot some hoops, or indulge in a spot of ping-pong. The options are bountiful, simple, grounding, and potentially highly pleasing.

Who:  Why you of course!  And your friends, the more the merrier.  Leave your comments of support.  Click here to join the Facebook page.

Jam making can be a cheap, satisfying way to stock up the cupboards

Where: Your place, your mate’s place, your ‘hood, your parent’s place, your neighbour’s place, any place, just leave the car at home.

What else? Get clever and keep a tally of the amount of KMs you don’t drive during these days (eg because you walked, rode, skateboarded, scootered, swam to the dairy instead).  Email them to us so that we can calculate the amount of CO2 emissions we’re saving and the amount of oil we’re NOT using, as an Ode to Tauranga while it recovers.

Ways you can help (note this information will change fast): design us a logo, partner up as an organisation (we’ll put your logo and web-link on this page) and share our updates with your people, send us some amazing images that would fit with this fun mission, promote Three Car Free Days in your community (particularly to your local Mayor and your schools),  spread the news via social media, leave a comment about great back-to-basics stuff you’re going to do, invite people to do back-to-basics stuff with you, at your place and tell us all about it.  Email [email protected] to help.

More to come soon …

Guerilla knitting - perhaps the ideal way to combine knitting with fossil fueled transport on our three Car Free Sundays

Thanks to the following Partners:

Sustained Consulting – Serious about sustainability

Southern PR – Queenstown

Stacey Gasson – Sustainability Consultant, Kapiti Coast

Ecobob – www.ecobob.co.nz

Tags: three car free days