Tag: Rubbish

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by Incredible Planet Staff

Time for a spring clean – what you should and shouldn’t be throwing out


Homes

Regardless of what season it is, having a clean home to come back to after a hard day of work is absolute bliss. No one can deny that cleaning up can be a long and tedious process with much confusion regarding what you should keep and what has to be thrown out.

Sorting things out may take up a lot of time and effort, so here’s a guide to determine what needs to go out and what you should hold onto.

What you should be throwing out

There are some things that need to be thrown out to make room for new stuff, or simply to just make room generally, like:

Candles

If there are candles that don’t burn anymore, put them on top of the list of things to be thrown away. Nobody is going to pay for them and it’s best to throw them away to make room for some new candles. When the smell is gone it’s better to buy new ones because you can get good scented candles at great prices.

Everything with missing pieces

Have a board game from ten years ago that’s missing few pieces? Lost one of a pair of earrings two years back and still waiting for it to turn up? You will not find it and it’s time to move on.

Throw out things that are of no use, like a right shoe that’s missing its left. Make room for something new by throwing out anything you can’t use.  It’s also a good idea to throw out shoes that give you blisters and are uncomfortable.

Expired items

Throw out tablets, ointments and beauty products that are crowding your cupboard. It’s surprising to discover all the space left after clearing up the expired products from your bathroom. They don’t serve any purpose and it’s better to get rid of them.  Quick tip: Mascara has only a three month life span after it’s opened.

Toothbrushes

You should be changing your toothbrush every three months. This can cause old brushes to stack up if you don’t clear them out.

Towels

It’s always better to change towels once every two years because they start to wear out and become gross. While in the bathroom make sure to empty your bin as well – just a friendly reminder.

What you shouldn’t be throwing away

There are some items that can be donated or used differently, such as:

Clothes

If there are 27 dresses in a small wardrobe that can’t be used anymore, consider donating them. Somebody could benefit from them. You can also donate that new pair of jeans that doesn’t fit right after you lost some weight, as there might be someone out there who is still the same size and doesn’t have enough money to buy the new pants they need.

Before donating, check that the clothes are intact so that they are still usable.

Plastic containers

The plastic containers from ordering takeout food can be used as storage for things like beads or craft supplies. Pinterest also has some great ideas for using plastic containers to make something innovative and useful, or just to make spaces look better and add a certain style.

Old Electronics

Still thinking of what to do with that old TV? Is it still in good working condition? Try and sell it. Don’t throw it away just because you have found a new one. Consider selling electronics on Gumtree or Facebook – it’s a good way to get rid of them and can also fetch you a few bucks.

Books

Books that have been read that have hard backs or paper backs can be given to a library or tossed into a yard sale. Put magazines and bundles of papers in the recycling. It’s also a good idea to cancel catalogue subscriptions to give you more room and avoid receiving unnecessary mail.

Old eyeglasses

When buying a new pair of glasses, consider donating your old ones to charity so that you can help someone who can’t afford a new prescription. Somebody else could benefit from prescription sunglasses as well, so you might as well donate those too.

Cleaning up is necessary and if it hasn’t been done in years there are going to be a lot of discoveries made and a lot of new spaces found. Consider cleaning up regularly and if you do not have time you can enlist the assistance of rubbish removal Sydney. It’s the best way to stay organised and use storage more efficiently.


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by Incredible Planet Staff

Business Rubbish Removal


Business

We all know how to take care of our garbage at home. We know to put our recyclables into a separate bin and we know which night our bins go on the curb to get picked up. But when it comes to waste management for a business, things can become a little tricky and many different questions arise.

Who picks up the trash? What type of rubbish is allowed to be picked up? How often can your garbage be collected? These are all questions that arise for a business looking to dispose of trash, and this article will explore these questions a little further.

Find a waste management company that is right for you

Finding a company that specialises in business rubbish removal is the first step to taking the hassle out of waste removal.

Seeking out a company that suits your needs is crucial as different businesses offer different solutions. For example, your company may need oil waste removed which has completely different requirements than the removal of medical waste.

If you are a company that has several different types of garbage that regularly need to be removed, then it is beneficial to find a company that offers a variety of services for businesses of all sizes.

Several garbage collection companies in Australia offer services such as 24 hour emergency spill response, skip-bin hire and oil recovery, among others.

Furthermore, figuring out if the company can cater to your schedule and pick-up interval is crucial. You may need garbage collection services once, twice or even three times a week so when selecting a company you need to ensure that they can meet your needs.

Confirm that the company is sustainable

We all have to do our part to reduce our carbon footprint, so it imperative that you know how your junk is collected, treated and disposed of. Many waste disposal companies fully disclose these details on their websites and it is worth doing some quick research to confirm that yours is one of them

Many businesses will reuse and recycle where they can, and treat other products so they can be disposed of safely. It is not uncommon to find a rubbish collection company that is progressive with their sustainability initiatives so do not settle for anything less.

Find out exactly how much garbage can be removed

Once you have found a business rubbish removal company that offers services that suit you, it is vital to find out if they can cater to the amount of waste you have.

Searching on the company’s website or speaking to a customer service representative takes little time out of your day and can save huge hassles down the road. You should be able to find a company that can meet your requirements, but you will need to check.

Figuring out the costs

It is important to establish how much junk removal is going to cost your business so it can easily be put aside in the budget. Don’t be afraid to ring around to get quotes and find a price that is well-suited for you.

Find out how the garbage collection service would like to be paid, and if this is an easy process. Many companies take bookings and payments online as to ease the process as whole.

Education and training

Educate your staff by taking advantage of the training offered by many trash disposal companies. Staff can partake in training at an offsite location or education sessions can be arranged at your place of business.

Many companies choose to take this opportunity to teach their staff valuable information about how they can help the world become more sustainable as well as how they can make waste management easier in the workplace. Contact your local junk disposal service to find out how you can organise this education in your workplace.

Whether you are a small enterprise or a large and well-established company, waste management is a necessity. When it comes to organising business rubbish removal, research is imperative to ensure time, money and resources are not wasted.

To summarise, find a company that is tailored to your business needs, seek a business that practices sustainability and establish your garbage collection requirements as well as the costs.

Find a service that is easy to book and consider educating your staff on the importance of waste management. Setting aside time in your day to find well-suited rubbish removal in Sydney could make a positive impact on not only your business but also on the environment as a whole.

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by Incredible Planet Staff

Top Tips for Rubbish Removal, Recycling and Reuse in Sydney


Business

More than likely (unless you are zero I mean zero waste like that girl who has a single jar of waste from a whole year! Yes wow) than you will have a rubbish bin of some sort and use it regularly.

However, (especially the older generation) what should and should not be placed inside different coloured bins is not common knowledge. Even millennials and the unintentionally non-environmentally conscious individuals may not have wanted or have been educated at school or by friends and family of the options of rubbish removal Sydney.

Councils are trying their best to educate all, from children to the older generation with flyers, seminars and one of my favourite the stickers on bins with pictures and crosses and ticks. This is my favorite not only straightforward and effective and can be easy to understand for visual learners perfect for the non-English speakers. After all, we are a multi-cultural society.

So here, let me give you a brief education on waste if you don’t already know.

What can I throw out in my household bins?

Most councils have three bins, with different coloured lids making it easy to differentiate between them. Each bin has a separate list of Do’s and Don’ts however the easiest way to explain is:

  • General waste (usually has a red lid): All your food scraps, tissues pretty much anything that isn’t recyclable, from your garden as long as it is not a chemical or electronic.
  • Recycling (usually has a yellow lid): Anything with the symbol includes steel cans, glass bottles, plastic containers, cardboard, and paper to name a few. I should mention most councils use a co-mingled disposal where glass and cans are mixed with paper and cardboard instead of cardboard only.
  • Garden and Organics (usually has a green lid): As its name suggests for leaves, twigs, cuttings, dead flowers, etc. Strictly no food scraps!

Your council will supply you with a calendar which details the day each week that your bin is collected. Also, most councils alternate the weeks where they will pick up the recycling and garden bins. The General Waste bin in most cases is collected weekly with no exception of holiday periods including Christmas!

What is not allowed in ANY household bins

The main things that are outside of the everyday household rubbish, recycling, and garden categories and are not permitted in any household bins due to the requirement for specialised waste disposal.

These include:

  • E-Waste: electronics, computer parts, and batteries
  • Paints, liquids and chemicals
  • Construction materials such as concrete and large pieces of metals

Council pickups

Visit your local council website for scheduled Council pickup dates, where free of charge Council trucks pick up everything from your bikes to cupboards for free.

Also (2), most councils give you two free council pickups a year, all you need to do is book them and place a sticker on your pile of rubbish, and before you know it will be picked up for FREE!

Where does my rubbish go?

Landfill: (Red Bin)

While removing any junk, you can always call a local rubbish removal Sydney company. Transported to a local landfill. The larger councils will transport waste by rail to larger landfills which have Bioreactors. The Bioreactor breaks down rapidly to produce methane which is used to generate green energy a great form of renewable energy.

Reprocessing Facilities/Landfill (Yellow Bin)

Transported to a landfill where it sent to a reprocessing facility to be sorted. When you recycle you save landfill space and your sorted recycling materials are sent to be made into new products. A great reason to recycle.

Composting Facility (Green Bin)

Green waste is taken to a specialised composting facility to be screened for inorganic material like glass and then composted. Once the composting process has completed and most of the waste has decomposed compost can be turned into mulch either sold to the public, retailers or sold by the council!

Tips to Reuse

  • Freeze foods that are left over from cooking instead of throwing them out. There are plenty of smart blogs and recipes to reduce food wastage!
  • Use scraps: old bread to bread crumbs
  • Use pill containers, shoe boxes and any other container you have lying around for storage.
  • Use left-over newspaper, fashion tissue as wrapping paper
  • Donate clothes to Op shops instead of throwing out.

Tips to Reduce Waste

  • Compost: feed the worms in your garden, will help your garden grow.
  • Recycle: your waste will get turned into clothing, new bottles, etc.
  • Switch to online statements, save paper.
  • Avoid Disposables to reusable containers for lunch.
  • Repair holes in clothes or glue together ceramics or shoes.

Council Initiatives

With the ever-increasing environmental awareness throughout society, local councils are jumping on board to spread the word, and with that, they usually offer free Council seminars and courses. Courses can include sustainable living including the importance of rainwater tanks and vegetable gardens to composting systems and how to grow worm farms.

Worth a look and did I mention that it’s FREE!

What If I am a business?

You will not have regular bins, even if you do, it is strictly against the law to use them. Depending on your area and business type you may need to use a private contractor.

Businesses are required to have specialised categorised waste streams to safety based on your industry and waste.

They include (briefly):

Trade waste: this is a red bin for business, even if a business is a café, it is not to know what business-like waste will be included such as metals, crockery, etc. Those (except construction) are approved.

Recycling: for paper and cardboard only, it is scarce to find a co-mingled bin.

Medical waste: to prevent any chance of spreading any contagious or harmful diseases any rubbish/tools or gloves need to be destroyed at high temperature in a specialised facility.

Construction skips: for large pieces of metal, concrete slabs and pretty much anything construction based.

Wrap Up.

Unfortunately, in our disposable society partly due to the cheap cost of electronics and clothing makes it very attractive and too easy to throw out and replace a $10 kettle or a stretched $5 singlet from Kmart.

Apart from becoming waste aware, and helping the environment recycling and reusing can save you money even when you shop, recycled clothing and toilet paper, etc. can be cheaper.

Also, if you want to take your environmental awareness to another level you can restrict any clothes, tools, and chemicals to 100% natural and sustainable. If you are willing to dish out the cash that is.

There are plenty of resources online, in books and on TV to continue to learn about waste, where it goes and how you can play a part.

Even basic home recycling makes a significant difference, you are saving rubbish from a landfill and more than likely it will be turned into anything from new glass bottles, cans, paper, car parts and even clothes!

Awesome, right?

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by Incredible Planet Staff

Where Does Sydney’s Rubbish go, once removed from your house?


Places

Each week you roll out the old trusty wheelie bin to the curb, leave it there and then roll it back into your specific bin area the next day. The question is though, what is happening to the waste? What does Sydney do with your rubbish once they remove it?

Each of the different types of rubbish is treated differently and here’s how.

It should be noted that some areas have one recycling bin (yellow) and some have two (blue and yellow). We have split them up to explain the different materials more effectively.

Red Bin Rubbish
The Rubbish that doesn’t get recycled goes straight into a landfill. Just a hole in the ground where we dump tonnes of rubbish, then put dirt over it. Before that though, it is sent to a waste treatment plant, which sorts some of the rubbish to help find any possible recyclable goods.

Australia as a whole generated 43.7 million tonnes of waste in 2015, slightly over half of which was recycled. While this is okay, it is not good enough, especially when compared to countries like Sweden, who recycled 98% of their rubbish

In short; we place it in a landfill, where it sits indefinitely producing methane.

Yellow Bin

Paper and cardboard are amongst the most recycled rubbish around and here’s how Sydney recycles them.

  1.  Firstly they are sorted into different categories i.e. paper or cardboard
  2.  Then they are made into a ‘bale’ (a square of paper) and soaked in water.
  3.  After soaking the bale it is then shredded and turned into ‘pulp’.
  4.  The bales are then screened for plastic and glue, which is then removed.
  5.  Ink is treated similarly, but the removal is achieved through passing air through the pulp, turning it into foam which is washed away. This removes 50% of the ink, so the rest is then removed via spraying the bale with chemicals and washing it again.
  6.  The bales are then flattened and dried numerous times, ensuring they are completely dry and rid of all non-paper material.
  7.  They are then clustered together in large sheets, sometimes up to 20 tonnes, where they are ready for reuse.
  8.  The recycled paper is made into new products, such as new paper or egg cartons.

Blue Bin

While many metals, bottles and glass are placed in the blue bin, we’re going to focus on the process of what happens to the most common of these; steel and aluminium.

  1.  All the material passes under a large magnet that lifts up steel, leaving the rest for other sorting methods.
  2.  The Aluminium is then sorted out by an ‘eddy current’. The eddy current effectively acts as a magnet for the aluminium.
  3.  The material is then shredded and put under another magnet to remove any remaining steel.
  4.  Both the steel and aluminium are ‘bailed’ (separately) and head off to the smelter.
  5.  The cans are then stripped of all paint and plastic by heating them at 500 degrees.
  6.  They are then transported to a furnace that burns at 700 degrees, turning them into a liquid.
  7.  The metal is rolled out and made into new cans.

Green Bin

Garden Clippings and plant products that are placed in your bin are turned into mulch, soil conditioners or compost.

  1. Just like the other recyclable material, it is quickly sorted, into similar material, like branches, bushes and plants.
  2. Each section is transported to a machine that can most effectively shred the material.
  3. After the material is shredded is it sent to different machines
  4. The material is then turned into various products such as mulch, soil conditioners or compost. This occurs either by mixing it together with chemicals and other materials, or leaving it to sit.

Sydney removes way too much rubbish each year. Some of which we recycle correctly, turning it into new and reusable products, some of which we unnecessarily place into a land fill. While this is in reference to just the state government, many private rubbish removal companies in Sydney aim to achieve much higher levels of recycling and sometimes specialise in material that the government just puts in landfill.