Welcome back to the Year 8 Biretta Environmental Blog covering the television series ‘War on Waste’. This series helps to raise awareness of the increasing problems of landfill throughout Australia.
In the third and final episode of ‘War On Waste’ Season 2, Craig Reucassel covered the topic of food waste. Food waste is one of the major reasons of the ever-increasing landfill on our planet. Did you know that 58% of kitchen waste generated in houses comes solely from leftover food? This massive statistic amounts to 4 million tonnes of wasted food thrown into landfill every year in Australia. Some companies and councils are trying to fix this problem, and we should all be following and supporting them to raise the awareness of these companies.
One company has found a new way to combat food waste by generating water from leftover food from restaurants. This system is beneficial to the environment as it only uses an organic material that does not have any detrimental effects on the environment.
A few months ago, Craig was promoting “Straw No More”, a campaign that looked to get rid of straws, and asked a few pubs to get rid of their straws. However, after coming back this episode, the result was disappointing, as they had not listened at all and kept the straws at the front for people to take out of their own free will.
Craig Reucassel also highlights where his two computers that he put into an e-waste recycling department ended up. The first one which he dropped out in Harvey Norman ended in up in a new house and it received a second life. The second one sent out to Officeworks, ended up in what first seemed like a sketchy and untrustworthy source located in South Korea, but then was later confirmed as a genuine Recycling department. This is good news as we now have the knowledge that the e-waste Recyling services of these major brands are legitimate services and that we should rely on these recycling services instead of throwing out our electronics into bins and/or hard waste.
Our councils have advised us to put all our e-waste at these drop-off points. If you are unsure of where these drop-off points are located, you may find the locations here.
8B Waste Warriors
Suman Plackal, Joshua Antony, Alexander Gounaris, Michael Legg
With thanks to Mrs Kamila Bielinski for her support.