For the world, we should all watch our waste

AUSTRALIA represents less than 1 per cent of the global population but is disproportionately one of the most wasteful countries in the world, generating 540kg of household waste per person per year.

And it’s Australian households, not the restaurant industry, that account for 70 per cent of the 7.6 million tonnes of food waste thrown away each year. As a nation we are also one of the biggest consumers of textiles in the world, tossing close to 800,000 tonnes of clothing and textiles per annum. More alarmingly, many households also place hazardous waste like pharmaceutical drugs, batteries, light bulbs, and chemicals in the bin to be sent to landfill.

Businesses account for 36 per cent of waste in Australia. Though almost eight out of 10 small and medium enterprises believe waste reduction and recycling is key to being a sustainable and ethical business, the view among many SMES is that waste is a fixed cost that cannot be reduced, and proper recycling is too expensive to implement.

While the newly minted government gets to work on bigticket environmental issues like carbon emissions, the waste crisis is threatening to overwhelm municipal waste systems. We turn a blind eye by shipping our rubbish overseas to poor countries.

Though it’s great that single-use plastics are being banned in many states, our effort to curb out-ofcontrol waste will go nowhere unless we all take a hand in reducing our waste output.

Little easy swaps are not only good for the environment, they’re also great for the hip pocket. For instance, we can easily reduce our food consumption by meal planning and buying in season, reuse items by buying second-hand, and recycle responsibly by familiarising ourselves with our local council’s waste disposal rules.

Making simple switches is another no-fuss way to reduce our environmental footprint. There’s a great range of sustainable household items from bamboo toothbrushes to refillable shampoos to choose from. Plastic-free options are more accessible than ever before and as market demand for sustainable alternatives increase, being ecofriendly will hopefully become second nature.

Businesses can get in on the action too by eliminating obvious sources of waste like bottled water, unnecessary printing and packaging, and responsibly recycling e-waste.

The fact is each and every one of us must take responsibility for our impact on the environment.