Waste

So much of what we buy ends up as waste in landfill. Many products come in packaging that can't be recycled. With a little forethought you can dramatically reduce the waste your household sends to the tip. 

Solid waste is a by-product of consumption (natural systems create no waste) and has adverse implications for land, water and air quality, environmental health and land use. Solid waste management is an important issue for Tasmania's environmental quality for many reasons, including: soil and water contamination and the availability of land near urban areas for landfill sites. With many of the existing landfills in Tasmania reaching capacity, the need to reduce the amount of waste entering these sites is critical.

Each year the average Australian household creates 1.3 tonnes of landfill waste. By making a few simple changes you can drastically reduce the amount of waste that you produce and ensure that the waste that you do create is used to its maximum potential. 

Top 5 ways to reduce household waste

1. Reduce – In an era of excess packaging and impulse buying, it is quite easy to reduce your consumption by thinking about each of your purchases carefully. Highly packaged products, one use disposable items and electronic goods and appliances are particularly important areas to pay attention to.

2. Reuse – One of the benefits of our technological advances are that materials are much stronger and resilient than before. While often they are made to be disposable, we can intervene by finding creative and useful ways to reuse them.

3. Recycle – Many items can be recycled including: paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminium and steel cans, and other metals. The mining and processing of metal is very energy intensive and it is a non-renewable resource, so recycling it is important. Also, ensure that all lids are removed when putting bottles and jars
into the recycling bin as they are made from a different a different material and can cause problems in the recycling process if left on.

4. Rethink – Our society is increasingly fixated on obtaining new and bigger things. We all need to rethink the way we shop, shopping consciously, and choose things we need rather than want. Consider giving presents of experiences (massage, film, dinner out, picnic on the beach, ice skating) rather than things.

5. Refuse – Your dollar is a powerful tool for social and environmental change. Avoid goods that are not locally grown or produced using Fair Trade practices. Look for products that reuse waste material or are made using more environmentally friendly materials and practices.

Did you know?

• For every rubbish bin of waste you put out on the curb, 70 rubbish bins of waste were made upstream just to make the junk you're throwing out. So even if we could recycle 100 percent of the waste coming out of our households, it doesn't get to the core of the problem.
• 99 percent of the stuff we harvest, mine, process and transport is trashed within 6 months. That means that only 1% of everything produced is still in use after 6 months!
• Australia is one of the highest producers of waste per head of population in the world, second only to the United States. In 2007, the average Australian created 2,100kg of rubbish for landfill. (ABS, 2007).
• Only a small fraction of aluminium cans are recycled. It takes twenty times more energy to produce a new aluminium can than to recycle an old one.
• If every adult in Tasmania reduced the number of plastic bags they discarded by one a week, there would be 353,000 fewer plastic bags ending up in landfill and the environment every week.
• Up to 40 per cent of household waste can be composted, including food scraps, garden cuttings, paper and card.
• Every week, one recycling household saves:
• Over 3 kg of greenhouse gases such as CO2 that would otherwise contribute to global warming.
• Enough electricity to run a 40 watt light bulb for 72 hours.
• Over 90 litres of water, enough to wash 5 sink loads of dishes. (EcoRecycle Victoria Recycling 2001)

Here are some of our most popular Sustainable Living Guides about waste:

• Babies and sustainable living – this guide shows how to care for your baby while ensuring you don't use a lot of extra power, water, resources and unnecessary chemicals
• Shopping – how to shop wisely to reduce waste and save money
• Sustainable gifts – waste-free gift ideas
• e-Waste – how to reduce the amount of electronic waste you are responsible for and how to dispose of it safely
• Composting – turn all your organic household waste into beautiful soil with composting and worm farming
• Composting toilets – reduce the amount of sewage your household produces by turning it into safe, odor-free compost