How We're Learning To Live More Sustainably In New Zealand

For a long time (too long, really), sustainable living wasn’t ever really something that was on my radar. Since we’ve been in New Zealand however, we’ve found it hard not to live more sustainably and the subtle lifestyle changes and differences that we’re experiencing are truly amazing.

New Zealand is a hub for sustainable living and it’s been so liberating to experience a better way of life that’s not only good for ourselves, but also for the planet.

While I don’t think I could ever commit to being 100% vegan or vegetarian, you may remember that a few months ago Matt and I tried to adopt a veggie lifestyle whenever possible, if only to save money to travel. Our lifestyle changes in terms of food meant that we were only spending £13 on our weekly food shop which was truly remarkable.

We’ve not adopted a veggie or vegan lifestyle while being in New Zealand but there are a few things that we’ve been doing in a bid to live more sustainably; here’s all the ways we’ve managed to do this!

How to live more sustainably

Since we arrived in New Zealand almost four weeks ago now, there’s been numerous changes, both culturally and economically, that we’ve experienced.

Our first six weeks or so of being in New Zealand is being spent housesitting for my old next door neighbours from when I lived here in 2011/2012. Matt and I are both incredibly grateful for this opportunity as it’s meant that we have a steady home base that’s enabled us to travel around the North Island, while still looking after their home.

The lovely people we’re housesitting for have a beautiful house with plenty of land, five sheep, a goat, countless chickens, three ducks, plus a dog and four cats. Their land is also pretty huge and definitely much bigger than we’re used to so it’s been quite a task learning how to look after everything.

While doing so, we’ve learned numerous things to help us live more sustainably and I wanted to share with you guys how we’ve been managing to do so in today’s post!

Using compost heaps

The house we’re staying in has three huge compost heaps in the paddock area which I was a little apprehensive about at first because I always presumed that compost smells.

While it does smell rotten when you get up close (as to be expected), it’s 110% worth the not-so-nice smell for the great rewards that having a compost heap reaps.

We’ve composted pretty much all of our food waste while living here; apart from meat, which has to go in the bin.

Composting is such a great way to live more sustainably as it’s essentially just rotting down the likes of old fruit, vegetables and even eggs and repurposing them back into the ground as soil! It makes everything seem so fresh and organic and is much better than stuffing the bin with everything!

‘Living off the land’

This point on how we’re learning to live more sustainably in New Zealand actually covers a plethora of different things.

One of the biggest ways we’re ‘living off the land’ is by eating all the meat that’s in the (three!!!) chest freezers! The owners (I’m not using their names because I’m not sure if they’d want to be mentioned, but if you’re reading then hi!) have had many animals living on their land over the years and so when the time has come, they’ve been killed humanely on the premises and packaged up by a butcher.

While you may not agree with this, I can honestly vouch for the fact that these animals have lived the best life imaginable, with so much free space to roam around and all the grass they could ever want.

It’s actually very common for people in New Zealand to raise animals on their land and then butcher them. Even if you don’t fully agree, I still think it’s a much better way of consuming meat.

It’s also incredibly cost-effective as once the animal has been slaughtered and is frozen, the meat will last months and months; meaning you’re not purchasing any meat from the shop; thus saving you money and you also won’t be contributing to unethical ways of farming.

The house we’re staying in has pork, lamb and a few cuts of beef so we’ve had plenty of choice when it comes to meal prepping.

Another way we’ve been ‘living off the land’ and learning to live more sustainably is by eating fresh eggs that the chickens lay almost everyday.

There’s around 20 or so chickens here and while they don’t lay an egg every single day, it’s still frequent enough that we have a constant supply of eggs to use. Which for people who ate eggs pretty much every single day for months is great news!

Cooking (almost) everything from scratch

Following on from the point above about living off the land, we’ve also been making pretty much every single meal from scratch.

Most of our meals have consisted of some type of meat, accompanied by some form of potato and veg. Despite our meals not being too strenuous or difficult to make, they’ve still been a bit of a challenge for us, especially considering that we used to meal prep religiously back in the UK in order to save as much money for travelling as possible.

Cooking our meals almost from scratch has helped us to reduce food waste as there’s no packaged or shop-bought meals; everything we’ve used is fresh and made from locally sourced ingredients which is a pretty good feeling!

Shopping locally and organically

Again, following on from the above, we’ve made a conscious effort to try and shop for anything we need locally. Thankfully, New Zealand is absolutely teeming with places to buy homegrown fruit and veg. There’s also an abundance of people who sell their produce pretty much at the side of the road for a much better quality (and price) than what the supermarket offers.

It feels good to know we’re supporting locals when buying the likes of potatoes, apples and bananas at The Big Avo (and their fresh, real fruit ice creams are immense, too!).

Recycling (or composting) everything

As well as composting as much as possible, we’ve also made the effort to recycle everything that can be recycled.

While we did our best to recycle when we lived in York, I’m ashamed to admit that sometimes we’d get a bit complacent and wouldn’t always think twice about what we were throwing where.

Since being in NZ however, we check if anything and everything can be recycled and it’s so nice knowing that even our little part can make a huge difference.

Using no central heating (because NZ doesn’t have it…)

While it’s not strictly true that New Zealand homes don’t have central heating, only around 5% of them do, which is pretty low if you ask me.

One of the ways that we’ve been learning to live more sustainably is by getting used to the fact that there’s no central heating in the house. As such, Matt’s learned how to build a very good fire that lasts for hours and heats as much of the house as possible.

It’s also showed us that it’s possible to live without having the heating on all the time in the winter and as nice as it is to be able to just flick a switch and be instantly warm, it does feel good knowing that we’re using far less energy.

Spending as much time outside as possible

One thing that you certainly don’t struggle with in New Zealand is spending as much time outside as possible.

There’s just SO much to see and do everywhere and most of it seems to be in the beautiful New Zealand outdoors so it’s really not been hard to venture outside as often as we can.

Spending more time outside also means that we’re not using as much electricity or energy which is definitely a step in the right direction when learning to live more sustainably.

Free, outdoors activities have become our go-to and we’re endeavouring to spend as much time outside as we can. As I said, New Zealand is home to so many incredible lakes, national parks, mountains, hills, rivers, beaches and vast expanses of greenery that it really would be a shame to not take advantage of our stunning setting.