Different ways to reduce waste when moving or relocating

Reducing Waste, Three R's

When it comes time to move into a new home, relocating for work or migrating to a new country there always seems to be no shortage of waste going into our landfill. It is usually during the moving process where we find ourselves having to declutter and make decisions about what furniture and belongings we will be taking with us, sadly it is all too frequent that a majority of contents left over end up going to the rubbish.

Part of this problem is the trend in furniture, households having the desire to re-decorate which is contributing to the tonnes of cheap mass produced items. Hard rubbish collections are a prime example of the type of household rubbish we see constantly being disposed of. Mountains of wooden furniture, mattresses, electronic equipment, white goods and more are contributing to a large amount of waste as a nation. Based on a compositional survey of more than 2,500 households in metropolitan areas, an average of 25kg of furniture per household is disposed of each year; this is equivalent to 125,000 tonnes for a capital city with a population of 5 million.

With so much unnecessary furniture ending up at the tip, we must be more proactive about how we tackle this problem and reduce the amount of waste by whatever means we have available.

May be cheaper to move furniture than to buy new

When moving house there seems to be a common assumption that it is cheaper to buy new furniture rather to pay for its relocation. You will find a majority of furniture movers will tell you that moving a truckload of furniture whether local or long distance is cheaper than purchasing all your furniture pieces new. Most retailers charge expensive delivery fees for large and bulky furniture and purchasing individual furniture items from different retailers can impact the overall cost and budget

Selling furniture you are not relocating

There may be times where you are unable to take all the furniture with you, perhaps you are moving to a smaller place or moving overseas. Selling furniture is a perfect way to offset the cost of moving, have a garage sale or list items on marketplaces and social media. Leaving this too late in the moving process often forces unsold items to be disposed of at the tip, so make a plan to sell items early.

Offer to friends and family or those in need

Tonnes of furniture destined for landfill each year are in perfect working order or may just require minor repair. It makes sense to offer furniture items to friends and family or even strangers, the piece of furniture will have a new lease on life and more importantly, it is not reaching and contributing to landfill.

Donate what you can to charity

By simply taking the items you no longer need to charity, it can make a huge difference not only to the supporting charity but also to the amount of waste ending up in the ground. Charities can provide donated items to those who need it most and also sell items to the general public to help with fund raising efforts.

As we can see, there are many ways to reduce the amount of waste when moving house. Reducing waste should be the responsibility of everyone collectively, we just have to be more proactive in our daily choices and make decisions that benefit the environment around us.

Upcycle your citrus peels

Upcycle

Upcycling is the process of re-purposing a product that would otherwise be thrown in the bin.  Upcycling enables creative thinking and helps harness create environmental awareness.  There are many items that would be thrown in landfill that many have used to create beautiful pieces of artwork, exciting projects and inspirational items.

How to upcycle your lemon, lime and orange peels to make powerful house cleaners?

Lemon, lime and orange peels have natural abilities to clean due to their acidic pH levels.  In a large jar, combine peels with vinegar and soak for 2 weeks. Strain out the peels and use to clean a variety of surfaces in your home.  This technique is used by many professional house cleaners; it’s easy to see why businesses are upcycling, it helps the environment, easy to do and saves businesses money.

All-purpose surface cleaner

Combine 50/50 ratio of matured concentrated orange vinegar and mix with water in a spray bottle to help kill germs and bacteria on kitchen tops, stainless steel and cabinets.

Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner

Combine one cup of bicarbonate soda per half cup of concentrated orange vinegar solution to form a thick paste, lather all over the oven to dissolve oil and grease, leave for 24 hours and wipe clean to enjoy a freshly clean and fragranced oven.

Deodorizer

Pour some in a bowl and leave it out in any room to remove any lingering odour, add some essential oils to boost the fragrance.

Window Cleaner

In a spray bottle, combine 1/3 water, 1/3 isopropyl and 1/3 orange and vinegar concentrate. Spray onto mirrors, glass and windows for the ultimate clear shine.

Sticky residue remover

Use the orange vinegar concentrate directly on the residue to break down the stickiness. It is excellent in removing gum, stickers and price tags.

Upcycling can be as simple or as complex as you want.  Find a local group and join people in upcycling and sharing knowledge.  At the very least you’ll have a bit of fun whilst helping the environment.

The Importance of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Three R's

There is a general mantra that many of us were taught as kid but don’t forever think of on a daily basic. The mantra is reuse, reduce and recycle otherwise known as the three Rs. Over the last half century, the quantity of waste created per person in American has almost doubled. The promotion and concept of the three Rs was created to support combat the drastic raise in strong waste production.

Reducing

Reducing means decreasing your consumption or purchasing less. Designing items like plastic bottles in ways that use less material is another way to decrease consumption. Using steel cutlery instead of plastic utensils, purchasing used goods, mending clothes instead of purchasing new ones and wasting less power are all examples of ways you can reduce.

Reusing

Rather than throwing out items like food jars or clothing, consumers can find fresh uses for them and so decrease their use of fresh resources. Using jars to save leftover food or beverages, and selling or trading used DVDs are all examples of ideas people can reuse. Reusing is the second most successful of the 3 Rs, it stops waste creation by creating a new purpose on an old item.

Recycling

Recycling extracts precious materials from items that might otherwise be considered waste and turns them into fresh products. Communities have a range of recycling programs, such as drop-off centers, curbside pickup of recyclables, buy-pack centers that pay you for precious items and deposit refund programs. Deposit refund programs which contain a deposit as part of the product price, repay customers when they recycle such products as plastic bottles and soda cans. As a consumer, you can also support recycling by buying products produced from recycled materials.

 What is it vital?

Producing extracting natural resources, such as aluminum or bauxite ore, and refining them to make products use power in the process. Often, burning fossils fuels produces this energy. When people throw those items away, they send them to landfills where they may take long time to break down fully. Reuse, reduce and recycle help decrease the carbon footprint, carbon dioxide emissions and power use and also limits the amount of landfill people create. These savings can be substantial; recycling aluminum uses just 5% of the power needed to refine aluminum.

Making a change

It is more vital than ever to decrease the amount of natural resources being used in manufacturing processes, as well as encouraging recycling and reusing materials. In order to create a more sustainable future, we all must play a part in making a change.  If people continue to dispose of waste without any regards to these environmental strategies, there are substantial implications affecting our health, environmental resources and sustainability.  Adopting key principles and educating young children about the importance can protect the planet in which we share.