Wasteful woes

I should probably warn you…

I have one foot on my soap box…

And now two (and I feel oh so much taller).

I have a huge bug bare…and I’m going to share it with you.

Before we moved to Norfolk Island, we lived in one of those sterile new housing estates in a large country town.  I’m sure you know the estates I’m talking about – where all the houses look the same and you need a magnifying glass in aide of searching for a tree. It was a jungle of concrete, bricks and tin roofs in various shades of beige (all of which appealed to us at the time, for some peculiar reason). Well, all the houses in our neighbourhood were provided with two bins; a large otto for recycling and a smaller otto for other general household waste.  Every Tuesday, as I pushed the bins down our steep driveway, I’d applaud myself for having filled the recycling bin, whilst barely filling the general waste bin by a third.

Here’s what I think about this on reflection…

BIG WOOP!

So I sorted my rubbish.  Hooray for me.  What was the real impact of my actions? Did it mean I was motivated to generate less waste all round? No way.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think recycling is important. But I also think it comes with a huge cost; namely the resources needed to make the process successful - money, time and energy! I think recycling fools us.  It makes us feel OK about rubbish.  It helps us to justify our purchases.  It makes us think that recyclable plastic (and huge quantities of it) is acceptable. We say to ourselves “Let’s just put some of our rubbish in the recycling tub, and all will be right in the world of landfill”!

Yeah right – delusional.

I didn’t think too much about rubbish back then.  As far as I was concerned, we were doing our bit.  But imagine a world where the recycling bin is just about empty, say even half full (because I don’t want to scare you off with my wild ideas here people).  Try and imagine, what it would be like if the rubbish we put in our recycling bins never existed in the first place? Imagine.  Can you? It’s really hard. For a start, think what that would mean for the weekly grocery shop.

Now that we live on an island, the issue of rubbish disposal is in our face, every single day! And here’s where I have a sad tale to tell.  Lets’ say you are visiting our waste management centre for the very first time.  You’d be impressed! On first glance you’d probably think ‘this place has rubbish disposal totally under control’.  But boy oh boy would you be wrong.  Yes we have compartmentalized bins with convincing labels, leading you to believe everything is sorted and properly dealt with, but the truth is ugly, very ugly.  In reality, glass and metal is recycled, but everything else…it pains me to write this...is set on fire in a large pit and then pushed off the side of a cliff into a watery grave below! Shocking isn’t it!   I don’t blame anyone for this situation.  And I understand it’s due to lacking resources (particularly financial) and expertise. The responsibility shouldn’t fall on certain groups or individuals.  We all own this problem. We all contribute to it. In some way, we are no different from anywhere else. How is landfill any better? I don’t believe it is in the long term. Still, it truly worries me that this is how we deal with waste on our beautiful, precious island!

So now, let’s get back to reducing the waste in the recycling bin, or any bin for that matter.  How does that work exactly? Well, as I’ve already explained, we don’t have recycling bins here, so that means I have to carefully consider every purchase I make.  I have to remind myself that everything I place in a bin is going to ultimately end up with the fish! Thinking this way has changed the way we shop and the way we operate in our daily life.  It’s altered the way we store left-overs and snacks, it’s impacted on what types of packaged foods we buy and it has even changed the way I look at toys. This constant ‘rubbish’ worry has changed everything.  And let me make it very clear, we are far from getting it right. There are still so many things I buy that come in one form of packaging only – the dreaded evil plastic!

There are so many small, simple things we can do to reduce waste.  Like others I know, I have many ideas. Some of them could be put in place by the whole community.  But depressingly, there are many folk who don’t share my concern.  They selfishly think it’s their God-given right to consume and pollute. These people can’t imagine life without bottled water, or lettuce pre-washed and packaged in a bag or glad wrap.  These people make me crazy mad! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Sadly, you find such views in every community, in places close to home, and those far away.  But of course there are also people who just don’t know any better, the individuals who, if you just gently point it out, recognise the issues and consider making a few little changes. Little changes that equal big impact.

So.

Where am I headed with all this? 

What are my intentions with this rant you ask? 

Well an idea came to me in the middle of the night (as all great ideas do). Reflecting on recent changes we’d made, I thought to myself, maybe it would be useful if I wrote about them in a weekly blog post.  An opportunity to  share some of the ideas we currently have in place in our household, that impact on waste reduction. To me they are glaringly obvious, but one thing I’m learning as I get older, is never assume anything. If there is one person, and one person only who takes one of my ideas and applies it, then I’ll feel happy.  It will be one tiny baby sized step towards creating an island, and ultimately a world with less waste.  And that can only be a good thing right?

Stay tuned for my first idea, later this week!

And I’m hopping off my soap box now (and I promise to tuck it away for a while).