While some of us struggle to meet basic human needs for food, clothing and shelter, many of us have much more than we need. Food goes to waste and closets are overfilled. Many of us find our homes cluttered with stuff yet we continue to buy more products and add to the chaos.
In 2020-21 Australians sent 100,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill, with the average Australian disposing of 12kgs. Cessnock is throwing out to landfill around 288 tonnes (equivalent to approximately 36 000 washing loads) of clothing per year. That’s huge! To help reduce this figure commit to waiting at least a fortnight when you get the urge to buy something new and instead shop in your own wardrobe. Check out this guide (below) to help reduce your families clothing waste.
It’s a similar story with food waste - with a staggering 2.5 million tonnes of food waste coming directly from our homes each year. People have become obsessed with having ‘more’. This overconsumption and waste causes water pollution, air pollution, excessive waste, climate change and many social issues.
We tend to think of recycling as the answer to our overconsumption and to deal with the associated problems. Recycling is not the answer – living with less is. To help, Council has designed the Less is More program. We will have a number of events which will help you live a better life with less. We will help you make do, reuse, repair, and swap and generally live better with less.
There are a number of free events coming to the local area this year, to find out more visit our Events page.