Saving Resources and Recycling
This section aims to get your community to think about the waste that you produce.
Waste, or rubbish is what people throw away because they no longer need or want it. Almost everything we do creates waste, and as a society we now produce more waste than ever before. Disposing of waste is difficult and costly. Most of it ends up in holes in the ground (landfill sites) or is burnt in incinerators which create emissions that are pumped into the atmosphere.
A low waste community follows the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. These represent the order of importance of waste reduction and minimisation actions. By cutting down on ‘consumption’ (the amount of ‘stuff’ we buy) in the first place waste is not created. Re-using items that still have a purpose means that another purchase of the same kind is avoided, thereby stopping that from reaching landfill. Finally, only when we are unable to Reduce and Reuse, we should recycle.
More than 60% of the waste produced by households can be recycled, by recycling you can help to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. The materials you recycle are passed on to companies which turn them in to new products. Using recycled materials to make new items can be cheaper than using ‘raw’ or new materials and could mean less energy is used. By recycling you will be helping to preserve natural resources and to protect the environment for you and for future generations.
It is important for communities to understand that reducing waste doesn’t mean making sacrifices – quite the opposite in fact! A low waste lifestyle can be less hassle because it is less cluttered. You could be spending less time shopping, have more money in your pocket and be leading a simpler life. For the environment, it means less energy and fewer raw materials are used to make new products. This in turn reduces carbon emissions and keeps valuable and sometimes rare materials out of landfill sites.