Reduce your waste
Your first choice is to avoid creating waste in the first place.
Being a conscious consumer means you think about the purchases you make every day. By choosing to buy less and creating less waste you are contributing to a more sustainable future.
Check out our top tips!
Tip 1: Avoid creating waste
How to reduce your plastic waste, visit Plastic free July.
Tip 2: Reuse
- Before you throw something away... can it be reused again?
- Bring your reusable containers wherever you go. Things like reusable water bottles, coffee cups and containers work well in reducing single use packaging.
Tip 3: Recycle right
- Recycling is great however our first choice is to avoid creating waste in the first place. Remember tip 1!
- Follow the recycling rules. Remember we only want paper, cardboard, steel, aluminium, glass and hard plastics.
What happened to soft plastics recycling?
Soft plastics are things like chip packets, lolly wrappers, cling film and plastic bags.
In November 2022, REDcycle announced it was suspending its soft plastics collection program.
Soft plastics are a challenging issue for Council and the recycling industry. It takes a lot of energy to recycle soft plastics and the end product is very low in quality. There is no demand for this low quality recycled soft plastic product. If no one wants to buy the product, then the recycling process isn't complete. This makes it hard for waste management companies to want recycle soft plastics.
Please put soft plastics in the waste bin at home.
It's always better to avoid creating waste in the first place. Try to avoid buying items with lots of packaging.
- Choose fruit and vegetables with no wrapping or packaging.
- Bring your own produce bags.
- Is there another option with better packaging? E.g. comes in a cardboard box.