“Ninety percent of people who shift to a lifestyle block do it because they don’t want any neighbours.”

Such was the frank observation of a real estate agent in the audience of a Fieldays presentation looking at the loss of productive land to small rural blocks.

His comment struck a chord with me. After close encounters in the city, my wife, Sandy, and I longed for more space and bit of peace and quiet.

A dairy farmer friend said to me: “Just go to a café, look at the menu and what people are eating, and you know things are changing.”

That was years ago. Change continues, and the pace of change is accelerating.

The Craft Meat Co of Dunedin, for example, has “100% plant-based” No-Meat Mince. Sunfed Meats offers Chicken Free Chicken Wild Meaty Chunks made from premium yellow pea protein.

‘How to sort NZ’s plastic mess’ was the title of a recent New Zealand Herald article. A partial answer apparently is packaging that doesn’t need to be discarded.

But plastic is just one part of our growing waste problem, and recycling is only a partial answer to it.

The real answer, of course, is to not generate the waste in the first place. Enter The Rubbish Trip, a roaming zero waste roadshow with a heartfelt message.