Zero waste event was 'fun and informative'

Alex on right with organisers and some participants.

In what the organisers agreed was a 'fun and informative' event last evening, ecologist and climate activist Alex Konieczka provided information and hints on how to work towards producing zero waste in everyday life, writes Brian Byrne.

The workshop in Kilcullen Library had an appreciative participation for the mix of slides and hands-on activities through the evening. It was hosted by Kilcullen Community for Climate Action, supported by funding from Kildare County Council.

Beginning with an environmental education explainer on biodiversity and its importance, Alex then took those present through a story-telling session where people told of their interactions with biodiversity in their own lives. "That always generates emotion, because biodiversity is an emotional subject," she told the Diary. "Everybody is connected to biodiversity in so many ways, and this is a way of sharing and connecting."

Image: Kilcullen Community for Climate Action.

Alex had brought along examples of how she reused waste materials and products to make artworks and recycle them for useful purposes, including the provision of habitats for pollinators and other animals. The evening ended with participants working with some of what she had brought to make useful things for themselves.

In her own ecological work, Alex has just completed a report for a  youth festival on how to make such events more sustainable, and is also finishing a bat study in the Bray-Greystones area, which is ending on a high. "I completed my last survey the other night and discovered a specimen of the whiskered bat, which I hadn't found in the area before. I was very excited to find it on the last day of the project, especially now when there's a chill in the air and the bats are beginning to hibernate."

Born in Poland, Alex came with her parents to Ireland when she was ten. She graduated in 2017 from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in Natural Science, specialising in the environment, and subsequently worked in research in TCD. After some years managing a sustainability project in a large global company, she set up her own consultancy, Understory, to manage and lead community initiatives in environment and sustainability. She also works with the Dublin-based Eco-Unesco environmental education programme as a youth programmes coordinator.

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