A Greener Australia Through Recycling
The Australian Government's Department for the Environment and Energy has launched an initiative to regenerate Australia in both urban and rural locations, through a scheme called the Green Army Project. The scheme aims to engage in over 500 projects per year and is seeing an investment of $360 million dollars between 2015 and 2019. The Green Army will consist of local projects that will encourage young men and women to take responsibility for the environment by planting trees, removing scrap metal and waste and recycling. Not only does this provide a fantastic opportunity for young people to learn valuable life skills and make new friends, but it helps local authorities to clean up otherwise wasted areas of land so that others may enjoy them.
Starting a Local Project
If you have a particular location in mind, the government will actually accept proposals, allowing you to take control over your own hometown's welfare and seize the initiative with regards to recycling and community care.
Helping From Home
However if you are unable to take part in a project and wish to help out from home, you can by simply reducing the amount of waste you dispose of each week. As one of the most wasteful countries in the world, Australia is seriously lagging behind places like Sweden, who have to actually import waste to burn because they are so fuel efficient and conscious about recycling. In order to get into that mindset, you can recycle at home, and all you need is a few plastic bins and some bin bags. Just label them paper/card, cans, glass, plastic and organic waste, and hand them to your local recycling collection whenever they make the rounds. If you can, try to compile scrap metal and garden waste to take to your local scrap centre along with your recycling if your council doesn't collect it. These facilities separate waste into specific groups and aim to recycle where possible, or dispose of in the most environmentally friendly way in a bid to reduce fly tipping and unnecessary landfill.
Garden Waste
You can even go a step further and buy a compost bin; that way you'll reduce your food and garden waste further by creating good quality garden feed. Everything from leaves and grass, to leftover vegetable matter will be able to go into feeding your compost heap, and you'll be minimising the amount of plastic bags you'll be throwing away as well. Homemade compost is great because you can control the amount of chemicals that go into it, and it reduces the buildup of rotting food debris that lingers in your kitchen bin.
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