Wasting Away

A Throw Away Comment

I’m not going to debate the impact of climate change or the need to stop using hydrocarbons for fuel, let’s just agree it’s time to clean things up. Things have progressed from the industrial revolution in the 1700’s, pretty much everyone agrees that filling rivers with bad stuff and smog you can’t see through is bad right?

So let’s look at the next step, it’s time to clean things up again. Industry has progressed, if the 1700’s were the messy toddler in the room, this century is the petulant teen refusing to put out the bins as it’s just not their turn (perhaps that was just my teenage years).

Paperchase

I love to peruse the Aldi catalogue, purely to see what kind of crazy is going to hit this week, but last year Australia consumed ~1.1 million tonnes of newsprint and printed material and of ALL paper used in Australia only 45% of that is made from recycled material (Industry edge, 2019).

To make 1 tonne of recycled paper takes ~ 22 Million BTU of energy (OCS Shredding, 2013) or the equivalent energy to drive my car 60,000km’s. We receive at least 10kg of junk mail a year - based on a quick estimation using the kitchen scales the addition of 2 wee stickers save 60km equivalent worth of energy.

With the aim to making the household carbon neutral it’s all going to add up.

ScRappy DOO

Yup the dog helps out with this one ( I’ve not got to composting the poo yet, but thinking about it). Milo (the pup) helps out with food scraps and the rest go to the worm farm and compost heaps. I’ve a rotating bin held together with gaffer tape that takes what the worms can’t eat fast enough and a dumping ground for grass cuttings, plant pruning and other good sources to boost the soil.

The ABC’s ‘War on Waste’ programme state that the average Australian throws out 3.5k AUD worth of food every year and that 2.6million tonnes of household food waste is produced per year. Clearly these Australian’s don’t all originally come from Scotland, where everyone’s favourite food, stovies is a meal made up of what’s leftover from the day before. A valid point though, ‘eating the fridge’ is a task we regularly do before going on holiday. Maybe something we should do more of.