Article for Garbage Disposal
An Eco-Friendly Christmas: 3 Ways to Have a Greener Christmas This Year
With Christmas fast approaching, Australian waste facilities, landfill sites and recycling centres are bracing themselves for a substantial increase in waste material. Christmas is a time for rejoicing, a time for spending time with friends and family--and a time for creating record amounts of waste.
Now is the Time to Manage Your Waste
Christmas 2017 is the perfect time to make your Christmas as green as it is merry. That's because 2018 will be a year of great change in regards to how Australia deals with its waste. China, who in the past helped Australia to recycle its waste and received 155,000 tons of plastic from 2011 to 2012, will no longer import rubbish from other nations in 2018.
Western Australia also intends to ban single-use plastic bags from July 2018. This means that Australians need to pull together to ensure that their waste is recycled and disposed of in an eco-friendly manner this coming festive season. So, while fun should be high on your list of priorities this year, responsible waste disposal should be at the top of the list.
Hire an Eco-Friendly Skip Bin Service
It is often said that Christmas is a time for giving. However, what is seldom mentioned about Christmas is that it is also a time for wasting. This is of course something that cannot be avoided. Wrapping paper and packaging is torn to shreds during the excitement of Christmas morning, appliances are replaced and copious amounts of food is cooked and eaten.
Naturally, this produces much more waste than normal. However, rather than cram your bins full of assorted waste, making it more difficult to recycle, you could hire a household waste skip bin instead. Hiring a mini-skip bin would be ideal for the days following Christmas because that would allow you to dispose of the huge amount of waste safely and responsibly.
Ensure too, that your skip bin provider is eco-friendly as this means your waste will be recycled, not just dumped.
Avoid Filling Plastic Bags with Recyclable Items
Christmas time will see an array of plastic, glass and metal containers such as cans and bottles, pass through your household. When throwing these away, whether in a skip bin or a recycling bin, do not place them inside plastic bags beforehand. Recycling centres do not have time to rip plastic bags open and thus those bags will end up in landfill sites, not recycling centres.
If you consider that it takes the average plastic bottle 450 years to fully decompose, then you can imagine the damage that you might do if your plastic is not disposed of properly.
Compost Your Leftover Food
Organic waste like leftover food should not be placed into skip bins or general waste bins as otherwise it will be taken to a landfill site where it will produce methane. Like carbon dioxide, methane contributes to global warming, only it is substantially more potent.
Instead of throwing it out with your general waste then, compost it and use it to give your garden a boost next spring. If gardening isn't your thing, ask a friend or a relative if your Christmas leftovers might benefit their garden next year.
Be Clear With Your Skip Bin Provider
When you contact your skip bin provider to order your skip bin for Christmas, ensure that you check what can and what can't go into your skip bin. Otherwise, you could be charged more as your skip bin provider will be forced to separate the unwanted waste and this will be time consuming.
If you are planning on being generous this Christmas, give a little back to the Australian environment too. Get in touch with an eco-friendly skip bin provider so that all your excess waste this year can be recycled and disposed of responsibly.