With Christmas literally around the corner, here are more than just a few ideas that we can take on to help reduce our impact on the environment this festive season. Why not take on a challenge to try and complete one task each day in the lead up to Christmas? Also let's remember our many local recycling opportunities when undertaking the annual household clean out this Summer.

Recycle your empty medication blister packs at Blooms the Chemist Colac. Recycling individual products through programs this like allows materials to be separated and treated as needed, allowing recycling to be as effective as possible. Blooms The Chemist | Facebook
Collect and recycle your plastic bread tags. There are lots of permanent collection points to take your bread tags that are not too far away. Check out their website and look for the collection points locations list. Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs – Recycling bread tags, providing wheelchairs …. (ozbreadtagsforwheelchairs.org.au)
Choose paper packaging and support businesses putting the environment first. Many companies are now utilising paper packaging (or at least packaging made of less plastic) with Australia’s National Packaging Targets aiming us to have 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025. Support those companies moving forward first and leading industries in moving towards this target. Australia's 2025 National Packaging Targets - APCO
Place small rigid plastic items in a larger milk container to ensure these are recycled too. Plastic pieces to small to be recycled? Never. Every effort counts. Have a container handy under the kitchen sink or near your bin set up. Smaller items that seem too pesky or annoying to be recycled and that would fall through large scale recycling facilities can be easily collected and placed into a larger recycling container such as a plastic milk carton to be placed in your normal kerbside yellow bin. Items like pen lids, small broken pieces of plastic toys, broken plastic pegs (separate the metal component and recycle separately), Christmas light clips, zip ties and small spray bottle lids like on pocket sized hand sanitizer are common items to think about here. Do the same with small pieces of metal inside a gravy tin with a lid. This practice also ensures that little pieces of recyclable rubbish don’t end up all over your driveway or roadside when the wind is blowing as the garbage truck empties your bins.
Choose products made of sustainably sourced and renewable materials. Know what materials are ‘good’ and what are ‘better’ or ‘best’ when purchasing items. Know your sustainable and renewable materials, bamboo being a winner and understand the difference between degradable (simply breaks down into smaller pieces of plastic) and biodegradable or compostable (completely breaks down when exposed to natural elements).
Get crafty and upcycle materials to make Christmas decorations. There are so many fun decorations to make out of materials that would otherwise be binned or recycled. Don’t waste money purchasing new items if you can use materials that you already have. Get Googling and don’t forget to involve the kids.
Try biodegradable plastic bin liners. The variety and quality of biodegradable bin liners is improving dramatically as we try to make wiser choices to help the environment. Try different earth-friendly brands made of sugar cane, corn products or renewable plant-based materials and know that your ‘plastic’ will break down in landfill and not produce or trap within it any nasty gasses that contribute to global warming.
Purchase re-usable silicone baking mats. These guys let you bake with them again and again and again without having to use any single use baking paper. There are so many brands now to choose from online and in stores, in many shapes and sizes. Not only does the use of re-usable silicone baking mats eliminate waste and reduce the demand for single use products, but they also save you money in the long run.
Collect and recycle smaller but still very recyclable items such as batteries and CD’s. Head down to the Colac Otway Shire offices to recycle these items. Or look out for other collection points such as at Aldi Colac (for batteries). Better still, invest in rechargeable batteries rather than single use ones.
Keep an eye out for free events that correctly dispose of household chemicals such as the Detox Your Home events. Remove potentially dangerous household chemicals and other products from your homes and pass them on to be safely recycled for recovery and diverted from landfill. Dispose of household chemicals (Detox Your Home) | Sustainability Victoria
Recycle old shoes through the Tread Lightly ‘Save Our Soles’ project at SportsPower Colac. Did you know that 110 million shoes make their way to the Australian shore each year. Disaster. Yet only 1% are collected and recycled after use. Tread Lightly is a national recycling initiative that takes unwanted sport and active lifestyle footwear and responsibly recycles it here in Australia to give it new life. Have a read of their website and again support our local businesses who provide us these opportunities to make better choices Together we can step into a better future - Tread Lightly | ASGA | Save our Soles
Choose aluminum cans when stocking the fridge with cold drinks this summer and use aluminum foil (if you don’t have re-usable options). Clean aluminum is 100% recyclable, over and over again, don’t let any of this material go to waste. Scrunch foil into a fist sized ball, remembering to collect smaller pieces such as from chocolate wrapping and scrunch these inside a larger foil ball too. Place in your yellow kerbside recycling bin.

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