Waste sorting is something we can all do to help reduce the impact of household waste on the environment. Doing what you can to ensure your rubbish is either recycled or disposed of responsibly helps to minimise the amount of waste that ends up in landfill. In this article, we will explain why sorting waste is so important and how you can take a more active role in managing household waste.
What Does Waste Sorting Mean?
Waste sorting is the process of separating different types of waste so they can be disposed of properly. This process involves dividing waste into categories such as recyclables, organics, and general waste. The sorting process is crucial for recycling as it ensures that materials like paper, glass, and plastics are properly processed, which is essential for their reuse.
The Benefits Of Waste Sorting
Waste sorting is an important step in waste management, and the benefits are innumerable. For one, proper sorting means recyclables get to where they need to be, leading to better and more recycling. Additionally, a proper waste sorting process:
- Saves Money: Efficient waste sorting can lower the costs of managing waste. This can be a big deal for councils and waste companies.
- Creates Jobs: The more waste that is recycled, the more jobs there will be in these industries.
- Keeps Us Safe: By separating out nasty stuff like hazardous waste and practising careful disposal of these materials, we’re all a bit safer.
- Helps the Environment: Waste segregation reduces pollution and conserves natural resources. Reducing the amount of waste in landfills means fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
- Supports a Circular Economy: Manually sorting your waste means you’ll be much more conscious about what you can recover, repurpose or reuse. This means we’re turning waste into a resource, which is a big win for sustainability.
Understanding The Different Types Of Waste
Understanding the waste categories is key to effective waste sorting and responsible disposal. Here’s a breakdown of the most common types of household waste:
Recyclable Materials
Recyclable waste refers to materials that can be reprocessed and used again, reducing the need for new resources. The common materials that can be recycled are paper, plastics, glass, and metals:
- Paper: This includes newspapers, magazines, and cardboard. These materials can be pulped and remade into new paper products. However, absorbable paper, thermal receipts, shredded paper, and waxed paper can’t be recycled in the ACT.
- Plastics: Most plastics can be recycled, but not all – any soft plastics like plastic bags or coffee cup lids have to go into the rubbish bin rather than the recycling bin. Every plastic item in Australia has a plastic identification code on it that lets you know if can be recycled or not.
- Glass: Glass bottles and jars can be melted down and remade into new glass products. It’s infinitely recyclable without quality loss. However, glass panes, drinking glasses, perfume bottles and mirrors are made from heat-treated glass and aren’t recyclable in the ACT.
- Metals: Aluminum cans, steel cans, and other metal objects can be melted and recast into new metal products. Metal recycling is highly efficient, saving substantial energy compared to new metal production.
Understanding what can and can’t be recycled is one of the most important parts of waste sorting. When non-recyclable items are put in the recycling bin, recovering materials becomes a lot harder at recycling facilities. This is known as contamination.
Hazardous Waste
Items like batteries, chemicals, and electronic waste fall into this category. They require special handling to prevent harm to people and the environment, and you can’t put them in your general waste bin or recycling bin. Aside from being bad for the environment, they’re also a massive fire hazard at material recovery facilities.
In the ACT, you can dispose of most types of hazardous waste at either the Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre or the Mitchell Resource Management Centre.
Organic Waste
Organic waste, or biodegradable waste, is organic material that microorganisms and other living things can break down into carbon dioxide, water, and methane. When it comes to waste management, organic waste falls into two categories: green waste and food waste.
Green waste includes most gardening byproducts, like grass clippings, leaves and weeds, tree bark, and small branches. It should go into your green bin at home or green skips. This stops it from being turned into harmful greenhouse gases in landfills. Instead, it’s turned into compost or mulch. If you have more green waste than you can fit in your bin after a big garden project, consider hiring a green skip to ensure it goes where it’s supposed to go.
Food waste includes things like coffee grounds, eggshells, leftover food, fruit and vegetable peels, and expired products. Food waste decomposes naturally and is ideal for composting at home, so it’s a shame to put it in your general waste bin!
Waste Sorting Tips
Here are some pretty easy ways to make waste sorting at home more straightforward and environmentally friendly:
- Set Up Clear Labels: Label bins for recycling, compost, and landfill waste. This helps everyone know where things should go. If you want to make it even more straightforward, you can use colour-coded labels or pictures.
- Educate Everyone at Home: Ensure all family members understand what goes into each bin. If you’ve got kids, consider making it a fun and interactive experience by creating games and quizzes to test their knowledge!
- Keep It Convenient: Place bins in easily accessible and visible locations to encourage use, like your kitchen or garage. If your compost bin is at the far end of the garden, you’ll be far less likely to tip your coffee grounds into it when you’re in a rush in the morning.
- Composting: Start a compost bin for organic waste like food scraps and garden waste. Aside from reducing the amount of waste that goes into the landfill, you’ll have great nutrient-rich soil that can be used for gardening.
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Try to reduce waste wherever possible by buying products with less packaging. Reuse items whenever you can, even if it’s as simple as using a refillable water bottle instead of buying bottled water. Recycle what you can, but make sure to follow the local guidelines to avoid contamination.
- Stay Informed: Recycling and waste disposal rules can change, so keep up-to-date with local guidelines. The ACT Government’s Recyclopedia is a great resource for staying informed and looking up information if you ever need to sort waste.
Angel Waste Skip Bin Hire
We’re a locally owned and operated skip bin hire company serving the Canberra and Queanbeyan region. We do more than just take the waste from our skip bins and drop it off at the landfill. Instead, our team is committed to carefully sorting through each load we pick up, recycling everything we can, and giving each item a second chance at life. Our goal is to ensure as much waste as possible that comes our way goes on a sustainable journey.
Our customer service is something we take pride in, and our aim is to make disposing of waste responsibly as hassle-free as possible. Our friendly team is always available to answer any questions you may have about the right way to dispose of different types of waste and what you can put in our skip bins, eliminating the need for guesswork.
We offer a wide range of skips for both small and large jobs. Whether you’re planning a spring clean or a home renovation or if you own a commercial business that regularly needs large-scale waste disposal, we can help. Contact us today or make an enquiry online if we sound like the skip bin hire company for you.
