Links:
– My 1st Worm Bin
– E-Waste Rescuer
– Old Macbook Conversion
– Mottainai – Japanese concept on waste
– Learners Guide (Waste, Recycling, Compost, Worm Farms, No-dig Gardens)
– The Dating Game: What Use By, Sell By and Best Before Really Mean
– Expiry of medication – do they expire?
– Mindarie Regional Council Earth Carers Training Program
– Regional Resource Recovery Centre Tour

I’m making this video because I would really like everyone to think twice before using the words ‘throw away’. I’ve turned it in to a bad word in my house and I would love love love it if we all also turned the word waste into resource as that is exactly what it is.

There is so much we can stop from going to landfill.

Examples:
Say you work in an office and use printer cartridges, there are places that will recycle those cartridges and you can even contact the company that made your printer to see what facilities they have. I managed to contact one company where they ended up dropping off a bin where we collected the printer cartridges and drums to be picked up when full.

Before throwing away printing paper have you made the most use of it? In most places that I’ve worked at I set up the second printer drawer for scrap paper that has only been used on one side. And a note in the tray to make it easier to figure out which way the blank side should face.

Offices usually get rid of old furniture and equipment. Well there are ewaste recycling facilities. There are second hand shops where these things can be donated.

If you work in a food place that uses oil you can get the use old picked up which will get converted to be used as biodiesel. If the food doesn’t have long to go you can reduce the prices or tell customers it’s buy and get one free.

There are so many creative ways of honouring things the right way before any of it has to see a bin. Even if it does go to the bin just hold on to it for a second and think if it’s being binned the right way.

If you are throwing away drinks, are the bottles properly emptied and have you found out if the bottles are recyclable?

If you can’t finish the food on your plate, have you set up a composting system so that the food scraps can be transformed in to black gold that is vital to make more food?

Did you also know that things like use by and best before dates don’t really mean that they go bad exactly as the label says? This is why there are groups like dumpster divers who find so much food thrown away just because of legislation and the company trying to protect themselves.

You have other groups like freecycle and pay it forward where people who don’t need something give it away to people who need the same thing. You have the homeless who can always do with clothes, meals and drinks that don’t need to go in the bin.

If you set up a composting worm bin you can feed the worms foodscraps apart from meat mostly. You can feed the worms nail clippings, hair clippings, cardboard, newspaper and some clothes like cottons. So the clothes that would usually go to the bin could either go to a charity shop or freecycle group and if it’s not worth donating then the worms will turn it into something that enriches the soil so much and makes the plants grow so much better and make their defences so much more stronger to threats.

Before you throw away your electronics, try take it to a repair cafe, try repair it yourself. Become a kid again, break it apart to figure it out and keep ewaste recycling the last option.

Why I’m urging everyone to do this is because mother earth has done nothing but given us so much. If we honoured what we have we would not want more and more. Honouring it before seeing it as waste is the best way we can give it back to mother earth. We did so much to Her to turn that electronic into what it is. Dig her to take metals from her from one place, suck oil out of her from another place to turn it into plastic. Poke her somewhere else to create buildings where we unite plastic and metal together for our entertainment and profit.

Now imagine our food is made the same way, our clothing is made the same way, we do this just to watch a football match or race cars while we drink and don’t think twice where that bottle goes as we’re too drunk to care. Just because we can throw it in the bin doesn’t mean it just vanishes. All you need to do is take a tour to a landfill.

In fact apart from urging you to think of ways to avoid the bin, I also urge you to take a tour of your local waste resource and recovery centre. Lets honour what we’ve taken from mother earth.