You would be right for saying ‘doh’ – I’ve finally taken a look at what goes in our rubbish bin and have to admit, it’s pretty appalling. Not because it’s smelly and kind of gross, but because there’s so much there that just need not be there.
What’s prompted my ‘fresh take’ on something that’s anything but fresh? An article in the Sunday Life magazine by Paul Connolly about his family’s effort to avoid creating rubbish for a week. The Connolly family don’t count anything which can be recycled, composted or worm farmed and planned ahead to reduce their rubbish, but were still surprised by packaging which they hadn’t anticipated getting – plastic used to wrap newspapers, plastic sleeves for mailing newsletters, even plastic seals on jars of jam.
If you took a look in our rubbish bin, (not that I’d recommend it) you’d find loads of non-compostable food the kids didn’t want (and I stupidly put out), wrappers for food we probably shouldn’t eat anyway – muesli bars, chockies, biscuits. And tonnes of disposable nappies.
If that isn’t bad enough, the amount of recycling we put out for collection each fortnight makes me shudder – sure, it’s being recycled, but that also takes energy and much of the recyclable waste is also unnecessary. Last week I bought little boxes of sultanas for the kids – a little box for each tiny handful of sultanas – sure it’s recyclable, but it’s also a waste. Then there are the icy poles, each in its own wrapper and with its own stick – again – they’re recyclable and compostable but not often reused. We have yoghurt tubs, containers of tinned fruit, milk cartons, juice bottles galore. I’d be interested to learn roughly how much energy it takes to recycle the average wheelie-bin load of recyclable stuff and be able to compare that to, say, kms travelled in a car or kms flown by plane, hours of using a light globe.
Clearly my shopping habits have to change. While I’m not about to denounce supermarkets entirely, I’m fully confident I can cut back on both rubbish and recyclables without much pain at all. Thanks for the inspiration Paul!
I work in a high rise office tower and some committed souls in our organisation have negotiated with the property managers to implement a co-mingled recycling service. It took quite a bit of work to pull it off and you’d think ‘that’s the hard work done’ but then there’s the education of the people who use the service.
What I learned recently is that the recycled items must be scrupulously clean. To quote a blog by my colleague Gabrielle McDonald who was the “key negotiator” of the recycling deal, “if they see a milk carton with milk still in it, a tuna tin with a bit of Nemo still stuck to it etc, then the WHOLE bin will be sent to general waste and end up in landfill.
17 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Australia come from festering landfill waste each year, and rubbish disposed of over 50 years ago is still producing GHG today. Being lazy about our recycling not only undermines the efforts of the people who aim to recycle properly, it may inadvertently cause the death of a polar bear. Please be aware that no-one else will sort out your garbage, each and every one of us has to be personally responsible for making sure we recycle correctly to make a real difference.”
A lot of the unnecessary packaging has been introduced to reduce theft of small items, protect consumers from contamination by potential extortionists as well as marketing and the convenience of portioning etc etc. It seems we’re stuck with it for a range of reasons.
So, not only cutting back on recyclables, but ensuring any that are necessary end up in the right place. The pressure’s really on and the more we talk about it, the more of a habit it will become.
By: Sharon Cartwright on October 27, 2007
at 11:15 pm
My workplace has done pretty well in the recycling department too – we have comingled recycyling, there is a paper recycling box at every desk (but no rubbish bins) and compost collection in the kitchens. People have no excuse but to recycle properly when it’s so easy! And this is where communicating well with people to achieve an important behavioral change really makes a difference.
At home, I’m loving composting. As a family of 5, we generate loads of fruit and veg scraps and it’s great to throw it all into the compost bin. The kids love seeing all the worms wriggling about (worms haven’t quite made it into their mouths – yet!) and, although I’m not a great gardener, I love getting dirty to take rich soil out. The whole process is easy enough for a pre-schooler to do it!
By: genevieve8 on November 10, 2007
at 1:55 am