Tips and events to help reduce your waste

Join the Northern Beaches’ battle against waste 

To help you get creative and rethink, reuse and recycle waste we have a series of waste reduction events, on offer over the next few months. Join us at one or more!

In the meantime, here’s a few simple tips to help you.

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:

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. Reuse what you’ve got

Cleaning out your garage, wardrobe or kitchen cupboard? Instead of throwing it away, try some of these ideas:

For clothing in good condition that you no longer wear, take them to charity bins or offer them to friends. We also have a few stallholder spots left at our next Avalon Car Boot Sale on Sat 26 June – get in quick!Repair, refurbish, share, swap. Search online to find interesting ways to repurpose your items. Why not join our Wooden Furniture Repair and Restoration Webinar on Mon 21 Jun. For 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! In NSW, more than a third of waste we send to landfill is food. Use every possible part of food you buy, for example the green leaves from cauliflower can be chopped up and used in stir-fries. You can also learn traditional preserving techniques in our upcoming Preserving Excess Veg and Fruit webinar on Sat 26 Jun.  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 recycling 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 upcoming waste reduction events as we can all do our part to reduce waste and protect this extraordinary place we call home.