Five minutes with: Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market

Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market

Rethink first came into contact with Grey Lynn 2030 when their focus group 'Waste Away' invited us to supply bags to their waste education table at the Grey Lynn Farmers' Market.  Continuing this month's theme for a more sustainable giving season, it’s a fitting time to share our chat with Suzanne Kendrick, founder of the Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market.

Who is behind the Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market?

Suzanne Kendrick is a founding trustee of Grey Lynn 2030; a local community response to ideas of the Transition Towns initiative. It is a focal point to lead and get involved in projects that help build a resilient and sustainable local community. She joined Grey Lynn 2030 in an effort to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions in New Zealand.


Suzanne has an immense passion and concern for the effects of climate change, and is deeply saddened that in her lifetime these effects have become even worse, rather than better. The ‘State of our Gulf 2020’ report released by the Hauraki Gulf Forum, highlights the ongoing environmental degradation facing the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, with many shellfish beds and crayfish stocks being completely decimated, and the seabed suffocated with plastic and sediment. This is just one of so many examples of climate change and the effect it has on our environment.

Can you remember the moment the Car Boot Market was created & how long you've been around?
The Car Boot Market was initially a Grey Lynn 2030 project and is still affiliated to this group. Suzanne started the market in 2012 because she believed in the importance of re-using goods. She wanted to create a space where the community could sell items they no longer needed at a low cost, passing re-used goods onto someone who might need them - one person’s trash is another person’s treasure!

Suzanne recalls the Auckland Council efforts to build a local Resource Recovery Centre which she waited and waited for, but as it took so long she decided to go ahead regardless and launch the Car Boot Market.

To note; the Resource Recovery Centre was only signed off in June 2020.

What is your core mission as a team?
Re-use, re-use, re-use – all efforts to avoid landfill!  

What is Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market’s proudest moment?
The fact that we are still going after so long is incredibly rewarding. We have become a big steam ship that keeps going with our own momentum. We have genuine community engagement, and we are a valuable community service which attracts a wide range of punters.

Our local community is extremely diverse, ranging from hipsters to students to young families, to those with high incomes to those of modest means. For people who are looking to get rid of, or downscale items, they can do this by moving it along while making some pocket money and avoiding perfectly usable items going into landfill. We often see elderly, who can be on limited budgets, finding loved toys and treasures for their grandchildren.

What is your favourite Rethink product & how do you use it?
The Grey Lynn Farmers’ Market is held every Sunday and Rethink bags are sold from the Grey Lynn 2030 Waste Away table. We see plenty of market goers using the Rethink Canvas Bag or a Rethink String Bag for their chosen market bag, filled with many goods from their visit at the Grey Lynn Farmers’ Market, just up the road from us.

The Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market is held the last Sunday of the month, from 08:00-11:00am, (usually) in the Grey Lynn RSA carpark. 

Click here to keep up to date with the Grey Lynn 2030 Car Boot Market on Facebook.

 

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