A soft plastics recycling scheme was introduced in NZ a few years ago where people could take their soft plastics to dispose of in collection bins at supermarkets. At the end of last year, this scheme was halted until April 2019 as there was not enough capactity to recycle what had already been collected. Much of the recyclables in NZ were previously shipped to China, however, China has tightened its environmental laws and is no longer taking waste from many countries. It was recommended that people do not hold onto their soft plastics whilst waiting for the scheme to restart due to the risk of contamination and instead put all soft plastics in the bin.
I am a big advocate of recycling, re-using, and re-purposing to minimise waste. I can't bear the thought of plastic that can be recycled sitting in landfills for future generations to deal with. When I found out that the recycling scheme was on hold, I had an ethical decision to make. Should I continue to collect my soft plastics and wait until the scheme to restart, but risk contamination? Or should I throw away all soft plastics, knowing they will end up in a landfill instead of being recycled?
The compromise I made was to hold onto soft plastics that were clean and discard those that weren't to avoid contamination. I now have multiple piles in my house whilst I wait for the scheme to restart (which will be in May, but only in Auckland). I would rather have it in the house where there is a possibility of it being recycled in the future, than sitting in a landfill where it will remain forever. I believe we all have a responsibility to ensure that the world exists and continues once we are gone. And as a country we need to make changes and have solutions to our waste system that are local and sustainable, rather than being shipped overseas to countries that have more relaxed environmental laws.
I was born in Vietnam but came to NZ when I was 9 months old. My parents are very traditional and had difficulty assimilating. They have very strong collectivist values, where the needs of the group are put before the needs of the individual. They are very selfless and work hard to help others. They grew up during the war and have worked very hard their wholes lives and with limited means. From my family and their culture, I have always appreciated what I have and have always looked for work in which I could contribute to society.
Growing up in NZ in an individualist culture has also influenced my values. I also want things for myself and see myself as an individual and work towards cultivating and strengthening who I am. For me, this has meant travelling and seeing the world, and trying to have as many different experiences as possible that I may have not had if I had grown up in Vietnam.
These opposing sets of values are often in conflict and I often feel that I am stuck in a space in the middle of these cultures. I feel neither Vietnamese nor Kiwi. I am glad to be able to experience both cultures, but it makes life more complex and challenging.
Strengths: I am a very creative and practical person who is good at problem-solving in the physical world and I'm hopefully this will translate well to coding. I'm very hard working and have a good work ethic. Generally feel that I can complete a task if I put my mind to it and will persevere. Even though I knew nothing about coding at the beginning of the year, I wanted to be sure that it was something I wanted to do, so I started an online course and put in a lot of hours. When I want something, I go for it. I am very reflective and always questioning what has happened and why and what my role was in it and how I have influenced things. I reflect to understand what has passed and how I can improve the situation, myself and my actions, to have better outcomes.
Limitations: these often have to do with how I feel about myself. I am very self-critical and suffer from perfectionism and imposter syndrome. I never feel satisfied with my work no matter how hard I try. I always feel that I could have done better, regardless of the positive feedback I get. I have difficult asking for help from others as I feel that I should know the answers and am very hard on myself when I don't. This will mean learning may take longer as I look for answers independently, rather than seeking them from others. When I struggle, imposter syndrome will kick in and I'll feel like I don't belong and I'm not meant to be here following this path.
I feel like my perseverance and creativity will be my strengths – I will always try to keep going even though I may find things tough. I will try to see a problem from different angles and try to solve it in different ways, I will look at different ways to represent the problem and break it down and format it into a way that I understand. When this doesn't work, I will take a break, clear my mind, then return to it and persevere. When it comes to learning new concepts and processes involved with web development I feel these strengths will be most useful.
I was working with a client on a forensic rehabilitation ward who had previously committed a knife crime whilst under the influence. She going to be moving from the ward (where there was 24 hour supervision) to a cottage on the grounds, which was similar to a flatting environment and with much less surveillance (this was the next step towards returning to living in the community). We had been doing some cooking sessions together to prepare her for this move as she wanted to start cooking for herself independently. Her main nurse felt that she wasn't ready to be using knives due to her previous crime and brought this up with me in passing. I explained to this nurse that it was important for her recovery as cooking was something she enjoyed and wanted to return to doing, as well as that she would be moving to a cottage and it would be difficult to control whether or not she used knives as they would be readily available to her. This reasoning had been previously documented in the notes and the rest of the team had discussed this at the multi-disciplinary team meeting. There was other reasoning involved but I did not have the time to explain this to nurse at the time as it was a busy ward. As well, there were some power dynamics between the nurse and myself as she was much older and had many years of experience on the ward, while I was a relatively new practitioner and had just started on the ward. This also made it difficult to talk to her.
I don't believe the nurse was convinced as she brought up the issue another time as well. Looking back, I should have discussed this more in-depth with the nurse as we were seeing the issue from different perspectives. She was seeing this from a risk perspective, with the clients and staff in mind. I was seeing things from a client-centred perspective and wanted to advocate for the client's growth as a person and how she needed to progress and expand her community living skills for her recovery, and to do this there needed to be trust and positive risk-taking. There needed to be more conversation between myself and the nurse about our viewpoints, but due to the busy nature of the ward and the power dynamics, this made it difficult.