Getting Started at Home

Well hello there! I'm hoping the reason you've got to this post is because you are looking to start making some changes towards improving your own sustainability. Or maybe you've already been doing the "green thing" for a while and you're on the hunt for new ideas and suggestions.

The best place to start (as with anything) is at home with some quick set up systems.

We will continue growing this list of systems as we develop new concepts at home!

But FIRST Organisation and Communication

Whether you live alone, with your partner, in a share house, or are part of a larger family unit, the best place to start is with a discussion of what you want to do and why. We started learning more about sustainability when I learnt how terrible Australians are at recycling. From here my partner and I assessed what we were doing around the house and how we could improve.

It's not always an easy conversation to have, especially if you live with people who don't care about recycling or think it should be someone else's responsibility.

But the thing is that it's actually not that hard if you have systems in place to help you. And once you're in the habit of sorting rubbish, you find very quickly how easy it is to get better and better!

Here are a selection of systems we have set up at home that anyone can do:

Soft Plastic Recycling (Redcycle)

It's a not very well known fact that soft plastics, also known as scrunchable plastic, (e.g. plastic bags, cling wrap, biscuit and sweet wrappers etc) CANNOT go in your yellow lid bin. They can however go into your local Redcycle bin (outside either Coles or Woolworths) where they will be properly recycled. Our set up has taken a few months to establish - we had to deal with the issue of Kiva breaking into the rubbish bin and taking all the contents for a walk through the house - but now that we have a location, we're both into a great routine.

How to Get Started:

1. Find a place to hang a plastic bag in your house and communicate this lcoation (and what soft plastics are) to everyone in the house.

2. Be sure to rinse and dry any contaminated plastics (e.g. used plastic wrap or salad bags) before putting in the bag.

3. Remember to take this bag with you to your local supermarket and place into the bins out the front.

Indoors Recycling Bin/Basket

It took us ages to decide how best to store our recycling products indoors. We share 4 yellow lid bins between 12 units and while they're not located too far away, it just isn't feasible to walk our recycling out every day. Additionally, putting recycling products into a plastic bags means the contents WILL NOT be recycled (which defeats the point).

We have settled on a basket in our laundry (similar to the wire one above from Kmart Australia) which we use for the majority of our recyclables. The pros of the basket are that because it's see through, we are able to keep track of what's going where. The cons are that sometimes items fall through the cracks (which usually comes as a timely reminder that the item might not be recyclable).

How to Get Started:

1. Find somewhere to put recyclable products during the week and communicate this to everyone in the house.

2. If you are using a plastic bag hung somewhere, make sure that the bag DOES NOT go into your recycling bin AND that at the end of its life, it goes into your soft plastics recycling.

3. Consider whether multiple recycling bins might increase your recycling (e.g. a bin in the bathroom, a bin outdoors near the BBQ/Man Cave).

Bottle Tops and Caps

Another easy system is NOT to chuck tops and caps into the recycling bin. You may think you're doing the right thing but most recycling plants do not have the technology to sort your smaller items (anything smaller than a business card) at the plant.

Bottle caps can be recycled if they are placed into a can made from a similar metal (e.g. a rinsed baked beans can) and then squished (to use the technical term) to ensure they cannot fall out.

Plastic tops can be collected and brought to an Envision Hands collection point or you can contact your local primary school and see if they need any items for art/craft work.

How to Get Started:

1. Find a location near your recycling bin/basket where you can store (combined or separate) bottle tops and caps. We collect recyclables from 12 units so we separate into two bins to make the end task easier.

2. Consider what your end goal is for caps and tops, particularly where they will end up going.

3. If you plan on putting caps into a can and placing in your yellow lid bin, start also collecting cans for this step.

Compost and/or Chickens

We're not at the point where we can go zero waste. This isn't an excuse; it's certainly something we're working on BUT we have minimized our red bin rubbish dramatically within the last 6 months and I still count that as a win!

All food scraps (minus protein) can go into a compost bin and all food scraps (protein included) can be fed to chickens. While not everyone has the space or the time to maintain a compost or keep chickens, ask around among your friends, family and colleagues to see if anyone would be willing to take your extra scraps OR join Share Waste to donate your waste.

Any food scraps that go to landfill will decompose slowly (especially if they are wrapped in a plastic garbage bag) and contribute to methane emissions.

How to Get Started:

1. Decide whether you will be composting at home, buying chickens, or saving scraps for someone else.

2. Choose a location and a container at home to collect scraps and communicate what goes into the container to everyone else.

3. Empty and clean the container regularly to avoid bugs and smells.

Obligatory Plea for Comments: what are your composting tips?