Waste & recycling
Recycling in Australia rose from 20 per cent of household waste in 1993 to 46 per cent in 2006 - on of the best rates in the world. We're also, since the anti-litter campaigns of the 1970s, pretty good at keeping our streets and beaches clean.
The bad news: Australians produce more rubbish per person than any nation except the US - about one tonne each a year. That still means an aweful lot of waste being thrown away and creating environmental problems such as emissions of methane (a greenhouse gas) from decomposing landfill. And buying new things to replace the things we throw out uses more energy and natural resources.
Learn to reduce waste by reducing, reusing and recycling...
1. Use of your council's kerbside recycling service, and recycle as much as you can. composting and avoiding overpackaging.
2. Compost, as about 40 per cent of landfill waste - 8.4 million tonnes a year - is food scraps and garden cuttings.
3. Keep stuff in circulation by handing them down or getting them repaired rather than dumping them.
If you can't find anything else to do, give unwanted items away to op shops or on Freecycle.org, or have a garage sale rather than junk them. Or look on Planet Ark's RecyclingNearYou.com.au.
You can also reduce waste by simply buying less; avoiding overpackaged items and plastic bags as much as possible; and putting a No Junk Mail sticker on your letterbox.