We know how frustrating it is to ensure your service meets the curriculum’s sustainability expectations through the year, especially when time and skills are limited.

So what we do is collaborate closely with staff and families, making your service’s sustainability journey easy and natural for everyone. With 20 years experience in early childhood childhood education and a deep commitment to sustainability, we provide expertise that you can trust.

We help you look beyond the school boundaries to embed meaningful sustainability actions & initiatives into your daily practices.

We do this through professional learning, eco-friendly fundraising, resource sourcing, and facilitating service-based projects to make your sustainability goals achievable and effective.

Professional learning is for staff and families of your service. We believe that in-person, face-to-face workshops have the strongest, long-term & meaningful impact in your service and community. Examples of workshops and talks include:

Email Mardi about your Professional Learning...

Service-based sustainability projects are collaborative in nature, aligning with your service’s goals and aims. These projects can include both your immediate service’s community and the greater neighbourhood community.

Participating in long-term, service-based sustainability projects not only fulfils your curriculum requirements but also promotes a broader sense of sustainability beyond your service.

Email Mardi to Start your Project Idea...

Eco-friendly fundraising initiatives focus on raising money for your service whilst emphasising ethical practices and reducing waste. These initiatives aim to generate funds that are both environmentally responsible and community-oriented.

Examples include a clothes exchange event or even turning a workshop into a fundraiser!

Email Mardi about fundraising...

Pressed for time to gather necessary resources? Let Mardi from ReNewy Living take care of it, allowing you to focus your energy and time on your core activities rather than administrative tasks.

With 20 years of experience and a passion for preloved items, creative reuse, and waste diversion, Mardi can assist with all your creative needs.

Email Mardi to source your resources...

By working together, you can confidently follow your steps to sustainability

Contact Mardi today to talk about how to reduce your consumption and bring long-term sustainability impact to your school or service.

Examples of Professional Learning Workshops for Schools & Education

These eco living workshops will help educators integrate concepts, knowledge, skills and values of sustainability into your teaching practices. All workshops have a sustainability perspective which values diversity, partnerships, relationships and behaviour change rather than purely knowledge and skills.

Workshops can go towards your Elective Professional Development as a “professional commitment activity” to “enhance teaching practice to effect positive change and impact on student or child learning progress and achievement”.

Nature’s Treasures: Place-Based Impermanent Art

Early Childhood Educators | OOSH Staff | Vacation Care Staff | Family Day Carers | Primary School Teachers | High School Teachers

This outdoors, active workshop helps you take in your surroundings and connect with place. Prompts encourage creative, impermanent, community-focussed works of art that serve to inspire reflection, environmental awareness, and mindfulness for a deeper connection with nature. 

Return to your learning environment with different perspectives on how to embed the outdoors and creativity into your teaching practices.

Ask Mardi about Nature's Treasures here...

Plastic Free Kids Play

Early Childhood Educators | Family Day Carers | Primary School Teachers

Plastic free kids play helps your family community shift the focus from single-use ideas, battery-heavy and plastic toys to play that values children’s curiosity, imagination, motivation to learn, ability to problem-solve critically, social connections, expanding language, creativity, and persistence!

Ask about Plastic Free Kids Play...

Sharing the Good Word…

The Marine Debris to Art school holiday workshop was received with great positivity & enthusiasm by our community. The conversations throughout the day were valuable and I appreciate your guidance, leadership, and relaxed nature.

Elise Budden / City of Newcastle

Thank you so much Mardi for a wonderful workshop, and for being so accomodating to my Eucalyptus and Tea Tree allergy.

Shaye / Low Tox Green Cleaning Workshop Participant
Mardi sparkles with down to earth enthusiasm and commitment. Her friendly, relaxed and to-the-point content sustained engagement. Enjoyment and learning were paramount.
Leonie / Opshop-ology Panel Discussion Attendee

Mardi’s Low Tox Green Cleaning presentation was inspiring and full of useful recipes, hints and tips.

Alicia Sheen / City of Newcastle

It was wonderful for all ages!

Participant / Marine Debris to Art Workshop

Frequently Asked Questions

Workshops & Events for Educators and the Education Sector

ReNewy Living is located in the Newcastle region of NSW. The main geographical areas for workshops are within the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, Hunter and Central Coast regions. Workshop costings will reflect travel and time.

However, I will consider some areas of Sydney, including the Sutherland Shire, Eastern Suburbs and northern areas of Sydney. Workshop costings for these areas will reflect additional travel and time.

Sure thing! Education conferences are the ideal place to bring creativity and inspiration into your conference program.

ReNewy Living is located in the Newcastle region of NSW. The main geographical areas for most of my workshops are within the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, Hunter and Central Coast regions.

In addition to workshops for professional development, I also do speaking about eco-living topics. I am available locally and nationally for all workshops and speaking events. Costings will reflect the additional travel, potential accomodation costs and time for attending the conference. 

All workshops are ideal for educators who strive to embed sustainability into their teaching practices and learning environment. They are also suitable for families at your school or service.

My workshops highlight the positives of what we can do to live a more creative and resourceful lifestyle, acknowledging that we are at different stages of sustainable living.

Education is at the heart of Mardi’s professional background! As an early childhood educator for 20 years, Mardi is still keen to share her knowledge with all stakeholders involved in the education system – young children, young people, teachers and families.

A range of environmental education workshops and presentations can support the early childhood, primary and secondary school curriculums by engaging interested students in meaningful learning.

ReNewy Living is based in Newcastle NSW and can come to many schools within the region, as well as Central Coast and parts of Sydney. Email Mardi to start the possibility of bringing authentic sustainable living into the classroom or the outdoors.

Mardi has a NSW working with children check.

Most workshops are designed as a 2 hour workshop, and vary in cost depending upon the type and location of the workshop.

Email Mardi to discuss your workshop timeframes and budget so we can work out the best style of workshop for your purpose.

All workshops are ideal for flexible learning spaces – spaces that allow for a range of chair-seating, floor-seating, table-seating and standing. This could be in a cafe, a shared space, community hall, office, child care centre – wherever your community is, these workshops can be there to meet them.

Some of the workshops use technology as a complementary enhancement of the presentation. Adjustments to the workshop can be made if technology connectivity is known to be unavailable prior to the event.

Stories, News & Voices

Sharing stories that strengthen our commitment to nature, community, and a healthier planet.

Bateau Bay Op Shop Guide

Bateau Bay is known for its picturesque, unpatrolled swimming beach located within the Wyrrabalong National Park. Relax and connect with [...]

read more...
Myall Lakes: My Photo Story

Myall Lakes National Park is one of our frequently visited outdoor and adventure holiday spots. My photo series captures a [...]

read more...
Water is More than a Daily Resource

My lifelong relationship with water is more than just being a useful and valuable daily resource. The connection strengthens my [...]

read more...
The Library of Things: Reducing Waste Through Sharing

This article is a summary only of the podcast conversation “Ep 3: The Library of Things Reducing Waste Through Sharing” [...]

read more...
Microplastics are a Gigaproblem

Plastic doesn’t go away nor biodegrade. It just breaks up into irretrievable microscopic, teeny tiny pieces that pollute our water, [...]

read more...
Using Discarded Waste as the Alternative Blank Canvas

Rubbish, waste, debris, litter, leftovers. All waste comes with a synonym of names. If you saw waste as a resource [...]

read more...
5 Perks for BYO Coffee in a Thermos

Stepping away from city suburbia, good coffee and local cafes aren’t as commonplace. It’s during moments like standing in the [...]

read more...
Tried and Tested Ways to Hang Your Clothes Well

My best tips about hanging clothes on the outdoor clothesline come from the people I know, who’ve developed excellent methods [...]

read more...
Sewing Couture Style Dresses From Waste

In this video, Melinda shares her inspirationally creative Waste to Art story on sewing couture style dresses from waste. This story [...]

read more...
Creativity is at the Heart of Sustainable Living

Tapping into our creative streak helps us cope with stress (aka develop resilience), appreciate beauty and approach life with a [...]

read more...
The Lake Mac Waste to Art Exhibition

Lake Macquarie Sustainable Neighbourhoods are challenging the way we look at waste with the annual Waste to Art exhibition. Waste [...]

read more...
Circular Economy from a Localised Perspective

This article is a summary only of the podcast conversation “6. Circular Economy from a Localised Perspective”. Listen here to [...]

read more...
Toronto NSW Op Shop Guide

I discovered the Toronto op shops at the start of the new millennium when we moved to Lake Macquarie. It [...]

read more...
How the Buy Nothing Project Changed My Way of Living

Buy new, buy now retail shopping is available to us every day, both online and in-store at massive shopping centres. [...]

read more...
Shop Local. Support Local. Buy Local

Shop Local. Support Local. Buy Local. These simple sentences have had greater prominence in our lingo over the last couple [...]

read more...
Maitland City Op Shop & Preloved Shop Guide

Set halfway between Newcastle and the vineyards of the Hunter Valley, Maitland is a town with rich architectural & social history. [...]

read more...
Kindness is a Virtue of The Yoga Place Cafe

Photo Credit:  Andsz Kolosovskis from @akphotoco Alyx-Jane, owner of the plant-based cafe The Yoga Place Cafe, believes the individual little [...]

read more...
I Made this Practical & Affordable Reusable Shopping Bag

The geometric design on this dark blue t-shirt captured my attention on my opshop travels. It was the perfect t-shirt [...]

read more...
6 Ways to Create a New Normal for Grocery Shopping

It’s early 2020, and the global pandemic COVID-19 virus has shaken up our everyday living. One of the most significant [...]

read more...
Locally Handcrafted Natural Soaps for a Plastic Free Bathroom

Natural soap making has been around for thousands of years. The rise of industrialisation, globalisation and cluey marketing means we [...]

read more...

Online Eco Store

Shop creative reuse...

Local Events

Find out what's on...

Workshops

Types of Workshops...