Hi Everyone,
This week I took a trip down to Mackay and went on a tour of our recycling plant so I could see firsthand where all our recycling goes – it was informative, educational, and also fun!
For the past five years I have been living in an apartment in Cannonvale which is not able to be serviced by yellow bins as the complex does not have the additional space required for them.
There are many apartments like this is the Greater Airlie Beach area and unless the Body Corp pays to build suitable housing for the yellow bins, then residents either put recycling in general waste, or do what I do, and take it down to the local tip themselves.
This process is time consuming, and I imagine many households simply don’t bother which means so much recycling is becoming unnecessary landfill.
Fortunately, Council have assured me the new waste plan coming out next year will start addressing the shortfall in this service.
Anyway, back to the recycling plant – did you know that all our recycling is taken straight to Mackay for processing and then turned into a valuable commodity which is on-sold to markets?
Not only is recycling good for our environment it is also making us money because all the proceeds are returned to the Council and in-turn the community.
I think this is great and you can read the full story on page 21.
When we transform our mindset from seeing our household waste as rubbish, to seeing it as a valuable material that can generate money instead, then we can change the way we dispose of our waste.
Every item of general waste costs us money and every item recycled makes us money – you do the maths!
Rach
“We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly” (Anne Marie Bonneau)
