6 things you can do to reduce plastic in your daily life
Australia generates 76 million tonnes of rubbish each year. Half gets recycled. Half goes to landfill. Plastic is the least recycled material of all, at just 15%*. Here's the sobering bit: every piece of plastic ever made still exists today, unless it's been burnt. It doesn't disappear - it just moves.
Plastic waste can feel like an impossible problem to solve. It isn’t, if we all make it a little smaller. Here are six small shifts that add up to a big difference.
1. Get your recycling right.
Soft plastics don’t belong in your kerbside bin — they gum up the sorting process for everything else. Drop them at a TerraCycle or REDcycle point at your local supermarket, or check what your council collects for hard-to-recycle items. Services likeRecycleSmart will even pick up from your door.
2. Ditch the cling film.
Swap it for beeswax wrap — sustainable, washable, and available in colours that make your fridge look better than your feed. Or go glass: containers or your own empty jars keep food fresh and your pantry looking sharp.
3. Rethink your wardrobe.
Choose linen, tencel, hemp and organic cotton over polyester and synthetics. And when you’re done with something, don’t bin it — donate it and give it a second life.
4. Rethink your cuppa.
The average tea bag releases roughly 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics straight into your cup. Loose leaf or a plastic-free bag fixes that instantly. Check it out here.
5. Out and about.
• BYO shopping bags
• Take a keep cup to the café — or better, sit and drink it there
• Skip the plastic cutlery and straws with takeaway; a fork from home does the job
• Refillable water bottle over disposable, always
6. Your makeup bag.
Look for glass, aluminium or naked (unpackaged) products over plastic. More swap ideas hereto get your beauty routine plastic-free.
Talk to your partner, friends, family and kids about the changes you’re making — not so they copy you exactly, but so they start their own. This was never about a few of us doing it perfectly. It’s about all of us doing better.