Environmental matters
(Firstly - so why the boring black background to all our web pages? ..... simple - uses less power - and it’s less obtrusive at live shows)
Like most folk around these parts - and many others - we care about our environment and the impact we may have on it. Short of digging a hole and burying ourselves, it is impossible to leave no footprint at all - the best we can do is to try and keep our impact to a minimum and concider the environmental consequences of everything we undertake.
Our children and their contemporaries, are now very much a part of the Mussel Inn team. Some are taking time out to start the third generation and we would like to think that the Mussel Inn will be able to support them and their children as it has us and our children.Let the good times roll - and roll - and roll.....
Latest initiatives
December 2017 - Replaced the staff toilet with a revamped Kakapo composter
October 2017 - Proud owners of a Nissan Leaf - 100% electric car. Next step - a public charge point.
2015 - Installed a blow moulding machine so we can make our own PET riggers in which we sell some of our beer and cider. This will save us heaps of freight cost which we have been paying to move pre made riggers from Auckland to here. A pallet of riggers - 1120 units, weighing just 70kg - takes up 2.7 cubic metres on a truck. We pay dearly to move a lot of Auckland air to Onekaka. By making the riggers here, we not only save a lot of fuel - but we also create another job for one of our locals. Win win. (and we keep our air pure!). We also have a 50 cent credit refund on any of our riggers returned to The Mussel Inn. I haven't yet invented the device to turn them into roof or wall cladding tiles but I'm working on it. In the mean time, we use returns for our staff supplies. Every turn round halves the waste.
Converted the brew kettle from gas to electric - way more efficient. The gas burners are still in place however - and a project dear to my heart is to build a methane digester to convert our spent grain to gas which we can then use to heat things
February 011: Purchased an EXPLECO BOTTLE CRUSHER So now we can convert the 3 - 5% of the bottles we cant reuse into sand which we can use around the property. On trial at the moment is mixing it with spent grain from the brewery and applying as a top dressing / mulch to garden beds to gauge the enthusiasm of the worms for incorporating it into the top soil as a soil conditioner. It's a fantastic wee machine - easy to use and built well (in Blenheim). Thoroughly reccommended.
Jan 011 - All water used in the brewing operation is now disributed as orchard irrigation
October 2009: We are now shredding all the cardboard packaging we can for use as a high carbon bulking material in our composting toilets and what dosn't go down the dunnies will either be composted or used as mulch around our apple orchard.
Awards
In the 2003 Tasman District environmental awards, The Mussel Inn won first place in the business and industry section.
2006 - Winner of the sustainable business section of the Green Ribbon awards run by the ministry for the environment.
2007 - Winner of the "TRAIL BLAZER - SMALL AND MEDIUM" Sustainable Business awards - Southern Region.
Onekaka is the Green Capital of New Zealand. In the last election, the Onekaka polling booth scored 50%!!
FREE BEER!!
The small furry animal tail bounty
In an effort to encourage control animal pests in our area, we offer the following bounties on their tails -
Possum - one free handle of beer or cider (worth $7.50) Having reached our goal of 5000 tails (and bugger all possums around here now) this bounty has now been suspended. We will gladly reinstate it when the government reimburses us excise tax we have to pay on this beer.
Mustalid (Stoat, ferret or weasel) - Two handles of beer or cider - worth $15!
Cat - Two handles of beer or cider - worth $15
Rat - a chocolate fish - worth $1
The tally as at 25/8/014 is:
possums - 5028 (on hold)
mustalids - 1008 (but actually way more than this as a lot don't get recorded)
cats - 98
rats - 227
The folks that reckon they know say that bounties don't work - well we reckon they have been offering the wrong sort of bounty!
