When it comes to managing waste, the best way to avoid creating it is to refuse it. The story on Four Corners on Monday, August 7 (iView it if you missed it) was certainly a good incentive to refuse to recycle, as it exposed the shady businesses out there basically collecting our recycling and dumping it in Queensland.
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It’s a real racket. I found it hard to watch because I thought this just enables us to use excuses such as “what’s the point of recycling when it ends up in landfill”. But in the end, I saw it as a great opportunity to review how we manage our waste.
We think that choosing products that can be recycled at the end of its lifecycle is a good thing. Unfortunately, it is feeding bad practices. I know I got to a point where I hardly put our landfill bin out, but each fortnight our recycling bin is full to brim. This still takes a lot of resources to collect and then process. I know recycled waste is better than landfill, but reducing the amount of it is critical.
We need to think about these things as we go about our lives:
- Refuse – choose to refuse unnecessary waste for example plastic bags
- Reduce – choose to buy less
- Reuse – make do with what we already have
- Recycle – this should be the last option
To achieve this approach requires a change in habits that can be achieved and will result in savings – both monetary and in waste. Changing habits requires:
1. A shift in mindset. What it takes to change habits is a desire to want to make a change. A shift in mindset is critical, so making yourself aware of the problem you want to solve.
Do your own research, as this helps to make it stick.
Since I started on my sustainable life journey, I know I started with one thing and the more awareness I built, the more the momentum grew to change.
2. Surround yourself with like-minded folk. It’s almost like a support group! But you need encouragement and someone you can bounce your ideas or concerns on.
There is nothing more defeating than being around Negative Nancies when you are trying to make a change and all they do is keep putting you down for it.
3. Create an environment for success. Changing habits requires a lot of discipline so surrounding yourself with all the old temptations is setting you up for failure.
Make sure you have what you need easily on hand. For example, making the shift from using plastic bags when shopping to using your own reusable bags will require some thought and putting new practices in place.
This includes ensuring you have reusable bags at your front door will help you to remember to grab them on the way out, as well as having them in your car.
Each day you can start making small changes to the way you live to reduce your impact with waste, including:
- Believe “less is more” and make do with what you have when tempted to shop
- Buy food in bulk taking your own containers
- Grow your own food
- Use reusable bags for shopping
- Supply your own reusable cup for take away coffee
- Stop using straws
- Stop buying water in plastic bottles and fill your reusable bottle from the tap (Australia has the highest quality water in the world)
- Carry around your own travel cutlery instead of choosing plastic disposal ones
- Avoid buying takeaway food
- Use beeswax wraps to cover food instead of cling wrap
- Use a bamboo toothbrush instead of a plastic one
Every day you have an opportunity to make a better choice that will result in great things for your bank balance while enriching our environment along the way.