Bin there, done that

After removing rubbish from her local beach, Zoos Victoria Grants Manager, Jodie has taken a personal approach to waste reduction. Her aim? To reduce her waste that goes to landfill by only putting her bin out once a year.

It was during monthly clean-up sessions with the volunteers of BeachPatrol that Jodie began to question her own impact on the environment.

“We’d pick up objects that were obviously littered, but there were also things like straws, plastic bags and other household waste that had either blown in or washed up on the beach,” says Jodie. “It made me think about what happens to my waste once it gets picked up, I mean it doesn’t just disappear – it has to go somewhere.”

There’s waste everywhere we look: on our beaches, in our parks, on the streets, in the ocean. It affects ecosystems, habitats and wildlife. Landfill releases methane into the air, contributing to climate heating. Floating in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a conglomeration of plastics spread over 1.6 million square kilometres. For some perspective, that’s almost seven times the size of Victoria.

Jodie decided to commit to limiting as much waste as she could, with the aim of only putting her landfill bin out once every 12 months. That meant trying to avoid packaging as much as she could.

“I looked for places that let you use your own containers,” she says.

“I started buying fresh fruit and vegetables from farmers’ markets and the greengrocer, and going to bulk stores like The Source.”

Jodie began talking to store and restaurant owners around her neighbourhood. Her local butcher lets her bring containers in. She’s found places that deliver takeaway in home compostable containers, and others that let her bring her own dishes to pick it up.

“I take a bento box to the sushi place near work,” explains Jodie. “They put the sushi in, I put the lid on and we’re off. I’ve also got soy sauce at my desk, so I’m eliminating the use of those little soy sauce fish containers.”

It takes time to make the switches, and Jodie still finds some of her favourite foods almost impossible to purchase waste free.

“Cheese, chocolate and chips are my biggest issues,” she says. “Cheese is almost impossible to buy without packaging. I’ve been thinking about going to either my local deli or market to see if I can get someone to cut pieces and put them in my containers.”

When she began her challenge, Jodie didn’t tell many people. Then she heard a conversation on the radio during lockdown about how people were struggling to get their bins emptied.

“I rang Sammy J [on ABC Melbourne’s breakfast show] and told him I wasn’t too worried because I hadn’t needed to put my bin out for a year and probably wouldn’t need to put it out for a couple more months,” she explains. “Some of my friends heard me on the radio.