Waste is any material, substance or by product eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required after the completion of a process. It includes even the tiniest items such as tooth picks or cotton buds. As the population increases the level of waste also increases. From the 18 million tonnes of waste in Australia per year about 7 million is from food. We throw away about 7 million tonnes of food a year and about half of it is edible with top reasons being expiry date, cooking a lot and not being able to utilise left overs. Australians also discard about 20 % of the food they buy and up to 40 % of the average household garbage bin is food and contains 60 % organic material waste. The biggest wasters of food are the 18-24-year-old, people with small children and families that earn anything greater than 100k per year. There is double waste during the Christmas holiday period.
Wizz Binz (a skip bins Perth company) recommend reducing waste by using the three R’s that is reuse, recycle and reduce called the waste hierarchy. Something simple as reusing shopping bags or printing on both sides of the paper can save so much raw materials from being exploited. About 75 % of waste at households it is recyclables. It takes about 6 months for an orange to decompose, 200-500 years for a beer to decompose and glass never decomposes. A glass container can be recycled and used in production in less than 30 days. It takes more time to produce than recycle. Mostly plastic bags are used once although they can take 100 years to decompose and more plastic is used and produced than in the past. 0ver 100k birds, whales, seals and turtles worldwide are killed by plastic rubbish every year. Some waste can be converted into energy such as aluminium.
Within Australia 500 000 computers were recycled in the year 2006.The best way to dispose computers is to donate them and the best way to dispose phones is to take them to any major phone retailers in your area. A simple no junk mail sticker on one’s letter box and opting for e-bills can reduce the amount of paper in waste. Landfills can impact on air, water and land quality. The best way to reduce waste is to avoid it in the first place. Approximately 7 billion cigarette butts are littered in Australia per year and it may take up to 12 month for it to break down in fresh water and 5 years in sea water. Responsible business owners should therefore consider hiring skip bins as part of their waste management plan.
