How you can reduce waste while you’re at home

Join the Northern Beaches’ War on Waste

Now that we are all spending more time at home and with the family, it’s a great time to rethink your habits with household waste.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing ways you can join Northern Beaches’ War on Waste.

Each week we’ll be providing a series of webinars, tips and resources to help you get creative and rethink, reuse and recycle waste from your home.

Get your neighbours and friends involved too by sharing your creative solutions on social media and we’ll be running some cool competitions to rate your successes.

Challenge one: Let’s do everything possible to avoid waste going to landfill

Avoiding waste is easier and better for the environment than managing the waste after it’s created, so here are some tips to avoid it altogether:

No toilet paper - no problem! Get back to the basics and learn from our grandparents on how they avoided waste and conserved resources when things were tough in the post war era.Avoid single use plastics- use reusable coffee cups, water bottles and shopping bags when you can.Put a ‘no junk mail’ sticker on your letterbox.Refuse unnecessary packaging - avoid buying fruit and vegetables wrapped in plastic or on a styrofoam tray.Rethink - try planning your meals and write a list so that you don’t overbuy, shop too often or waste food and other resources. Challenge two: Reuse what you’ve got

While we’re spending more time at home, many of us are cleaning out garages, wardrobes and kitchen cupboards. Instead of throwing it away, try some of these ideas:

For clean clothing that you no longer wear, take them to charity bins or offer them to friends.Repair, refurbish, share, swap. Search online to find interesting ways to repurpose your items. Did you know you can make a bag out of an old t-shirt or jeans?Enter our competition and go into the draw to win a box of fruit and veg delivered to your home. It’s as easy as emailing us with a short video or some photos of how you have avoided, reused or repaired something at home. Competition closes 5pm Friday 22 May 2020For items like furniture, mattresses and toys that you no longer want, you can learn how to buy, sell and donate online, keeping them out of landfill. Give your much-loved furniture or toys a chance to be used and cherished by another personLet’s not forget about food waste! 45% of rubbish in NSW garbage bins is food waste. Use every possible part of food you buy, for example the green leaves from cauliflower can be chopped up and used in stir-fries. Challenge three: Recycle right Make sure you’re recycling items correctly: check out our A-Z guide for tricky items like tennis balls and bathroom sinks. Which bin does it go in? Check out our bin guide.Remember to keep soft plastics out of your bins, plastic bags, bread bags and wrappers can’t be recycled in your domestic bins. Drop them off at your closest Redcycle bin.

Keep your eye out for our next news story and exciting competitions as we can all do our part to reduce waste and protect this extraordinary place we call home.