Sustainable September 2017 - Day Three

SEPTEMBER 3 (SUNDAY)

RECYCLE: PLASTIC, GLASS, BATTERIES, SOFT PLASTICS, COMPOST

Hello Again,

Well how are you going with “Reuse”? I am reusing a whole bunch of old jars to store stuff in my pantry. I particlurly love using the 1Lt Pickle jars or putting my specialty flours in. I am reusing old clothes as rags and also upcycled into other things. And when it comes to laundry, im always glad to have my old cloth rice bags. They work very well. It is amazing what you can use and then reuse. Reduce and reuse are the first two parts of this wonderful trilogy last being....

Sustainable September Day 3: Recycle.

Today (for tomorrow) I have included a few different activities that you may want to do all of, or just choose one. It is up to you.

In Australia, recently, there was a program on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) called “War on Waste” and after watching it, I realized how much regular Australians don’t know about their waste. Particularly what is happening to their things after they discard it. Here is the advertisement for the 3 episode show.

If you are an Australian and havent seen it yet I suggest you check out IView and watch the program there.

Normally I would link the program to the blog however sadly, the links to the website won't work for those of you over seas. You may be able to find a copy on Youtube if you really want. However, I know that they did a version of this in the UK too so if you are in either of these places check it out!

Waste and recycling go hand in hand. But only before we have reduced and reused what we can. All of this occurs before our rubbish ends up in landfill (hopefully none of it has to if we are careful).

I watched this short Vide from the SBS tv show “The Feed” all about recycling in Australia and really enjoyed it. Be warned there is a bleeped out expletive.

The thing is that in lots of places each city council or district has a different I list of recyclable materials. Some have road side collections others have drop off recycling. So even though I want to give you all a broad perspective of what can and can't be recycled, you need to check with your local council for the specifics.

ACTIVITY: Research what and where you can recycle your waste.

PLASTIC: In my area there are two type of Plastic recycling. Hard plastics and soft plastic. This section will look specifically at Hard plastics however it is clear that the two are made of the same product so they are often talked about as one topic.

If you want to look further into the role and damage that Plasic is doing in the world there are a few documentaries to check out.

1) Plastic Paradise: The great Pacific Garbage Patch, (Warning: graphic images)
2) Plasticized Documentary, about a research trip across the Pacific monitoring Plastic in the ocean.
3) The Plastic Age: A documentary featuring Pharrell Williams.

The first two documentaries talk about the problems with plastic waste ending up in our oceans. One way we can prevent plastic ending up in the ocean is to reduce the amount we use in day to day life and therefore the demand to make it, and the second is to make sure we know how to recycle it.

I really like a third documentary, partly because its only like 20mins long, but mostly because it has hope. it gives us hope that someone is doing something on a larger scale to change the plastic that ends up in our oceans. I also love it because it talks about plastic in terms of Archaeology (The Plastic Age).

The biggest thing we can do to stop Plastic ending up in our oceans, in our fish (that we consume) and on our beaches is to reduce the amount we use, reuse the things already in existence and then recycle the things we can to make them into new and exciting things.

ACTIVITY: Choose a documentary to watch and learn more about Plastic in our oceans.

SOFT PLASTIC RECYCLING:  This was something fairly new to me. In my house we have only just started doing Soft Plastic Recycling. I was actually inspired to start this type of recycling after watching the War of Waste Australia program. I take my soft flexible plastics to Coles who use REDcycle. REDcycle then turns the old plastic bags, chip packets, and other soft plastics into something that will be durable and long lasting, like park benches and equipment.

I have a soft plastic bag beside the rubbish bin where I can put all my other soft plastics. Then the next time I go to the shops I can take my bag with me to deposit at the REDcycle deposit bins. here is the handy PDF resource that REDcycle shares on their website. I've just turned it into a picture.

BATTERY RECYCLING: Battery recycling is something that our local school does to get kids to pay attention to recycling. Basically any old batteries (single use and reusable ones at the end of their lives) get donated and recycled.

I am loving finding great videos online that are both hilarious and environemtnally friendly. Here is another one about how to recycle your batteries.

ACTIVITY: Create a “battery recycling bin” in your home. We use old 1Ltr Yogurt Buckets to make our battery recycling bins. Either that or plastic take away containers (not that we have very many of them in our house, but if we do, they get used for other purposes).

GLASS RECYCLING: For this I grabbed a video from Devon in the UK. Now i love that the type of videos that are being created internationally can educate us all. Hopefully they can inspire us all to make a bigger effort to make sure glass ends up where it needs to be so it can be recycled. 

COMPOST: I will be talking about this later in the month in more depth. However, i wanted to give a little video about food waste and composting because it really fits under the "Recycle" banner of Sustainable September. This comes from the War On Waste Kids videos. Ilove that they have made several of these videos and that they are on the theme of "Im a celebrity get me out of here" but instead are "Im Recycleable get me out of here!" So cute and a funny.

FINALLY: There a lot more different things that can be recycled. Mobile phones and devices, toothbrushes and toothpaste containers, and so much more. I just wanted to give you a taste of what Recycling can be like. It doesn't have to be too complicated and it doesn't have to take a lot of time. But it really makes a difference.

To finish up... one more video from South Australia...which is the state next to mine and a pioneer in Australia when it comes to recycling. They made a great video on what goes in which bin. In my old Council area of Stirling they had a three bin system like this one, so im sure it will help any locals to watch this video. 

I hope you have learned something and if not, i hope you are using all that amazing knowledge to help other people, yourself and the planet. 

Enjoy,
love Daena