Last week in Australia, the Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek announced a 12 month moratorium allowing Australian to to export 20,000,000 tonnes of PET plastic.
We diligently collect, separate and deposit
our recycling plastic, imagining our drink containers ambling along a conveyor belt to miraculously eject at the other end as… another bottle or even a jumper.
Not boarding a boat to be shipped to Europe or Asia.
Our country’s waste may be sold and then on sold, where it has the opportunity to end up as landfill or in the ocean.
The NIMBY attitude, has its place in waste too.
How did we end up here?
Apparently popping PET bottles into the yellow bin is not enough.
We need to stop buying the plastic.
Take responsibility.
Instead of blaming our government, our neighbours, our spouse, we take action ourselves.
What will you change this week?
Today?
Is there somewhere you can buy loose vegetables and fruit. Ditch the plastic.
Pop into a second hand charity shop. There are always loads of mugs (including travel mugs).
Could you fill up a box of mugs and keep in the boot of your car? Next time on the road and desperate for a caffeine fix, there will be 10 mugs at the ready in my car. Enough to share, leave behind or break…
Every household makes a difference.
COMPOST (Again!).
The compost pile tells an interesting story.
The past two months it has been devouring all manner of waste.
Horse manure (thank you Rachel for letting me muck out your stables)
Eight garbage bags full of food waste - destined for land fill.
Cow manure.
Pig manure.
Cardboard.
Coffee cups.
I don’t have a gym membership. I turn the compost.
I’m fascinated by what and how stuff breaks down.
A couple of weeks in the compost pile and everything becomes unrecognisable. Nature doing her do.
While the cardboard cup you buy your coffee in breaks down, mostly the lid doesn’t.
That’s one thing that emerges in tact in the compost heap time and again.
Regardless of it possibly being able to be recycled.
Breaking waste down into something amazing. Compost. Which will in turn make the 20m journey to a vegetable garden, to grow food, to save buying from the supermarket.
See what’s happening there?
A nice roundy circle. A tiny model of the circular bio economy.
It might seem tiny - but lots of people minding their own circular bio economy adds up to a nation not needing to dump 20,000 tonnes of plastic into another nation’s back yard.
Is there room for you to start a small compost bin in your kitchen to transfer food waste into your very own compost heap.?
As tiny or as large as you want.
Occasionally a few surprises emerge.
A spoon or three. Gloves. Twine. I’m grateful for the supplies I’m given.
As the saying goes, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!
Thanks for reading.
Kylie x
