Northern Tasmania: Waste NoT Awards 2018

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2018 Awards are now closed for entries….. stay tuned for announcements of the winners and for 2019 Award details!

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Have you, your school, or your business made an effort to change the way you manage your waste?

The Waste NoT Awards 2018 is now open to schools, individuals and organisations who have improved their waste management practices during the 2017/2018 financial year.

From recycling to re-invention, upcycyling, and education initiatives, the Waste NoT Awards recognise and reward your efforts.

 

Review the Award Guidelines for full details:

Complete and return the Application Form:

Encourage others by displaying a Waste NoT Awards 2018 poster at your workplace,, school or other public noticeboard:

Entries open 2nd July and close at 5.00pm on 10th August 2018.

Finding ways to avoid, reduce and reuse waste

The three regional Waste Management Groups have created an awareness raising program to encourage Tasmanians to avoid , reduce and reuse waste.

Tasmanians are pretty good at recycling and although this is a great way to keep waste out of landfill and our environment, there are many other things we can all do to be good sorts and decrease our waste.

It’s important that we try to find ways to reuse and reduce waste, or best of all to avoid generating waste altogether.

Here are some simple ideas being promoted across Tasmania on TV, in newspapers, on radio and social media.  Are there one, two or  more things you could be doing to rethink waste?avoid generating waste where possible

Avoid waste:

  • Take your travel mug for your next coffee
  • Refill your drink bottle in place of packaged water
  • Take your own shopping bags
  • Choose unpackaged food and products over those with excessive packaging
  • Use containers instead of plastic wrap for storing left-overs
  • Say no to plastic straws.

Reduce waste:

  • Plan ahead and only buy ingredients you need for the week
  • Choose and maintain household items that will last or can be repaired
  • Borrow or hire instead of buying if you only need an item for a short time.

Reuse waste:

  • Post unwanted items online for sale or giveaway, hold a garage sale or swap-meet
  • Treasure hunt for pre-loved items before buying new – Council tip shops are a great resource too
  • Cook up the next meal from left-overs
  • Find new uses for every-day items, such sewing old clothes or fabric items into reusable bags.

If you haven’t yet seen the Avoid – Reduce – Reuse – Recycle commercials on TV in Tasmania, you can watch them on our Rethink Waste YouTube channel.

What litter did you find this Clean Up Australia Day?

Tasmania’s three Waste Management Groups are searching for the state’s most common litter items so they can make them the focus of future waste reduction education programs.

If you are volunteering in this weekend’s Clean Up Australia Day event (4 March), the Groups would appreciate you being their eyes on the ground across Tasmania and reporting back the biggest litter items in a quick Facebook poll.

The poll will be available at www.facebook.com/rethinkwastetasmania from 3 March.

More than 500 tonnes of rubbish are typically removed from the Tasmanian environment on Clean Up Australia Day, creating a great opportunity to collect data and get a snapshot of the main litter culprits.

David from Waste Strategy South says: “Food packaging and beverage containers made up more than half the collected litter in the last Clean Up Australia survey.
We’re keen to know if that’s changed with the rising profile of issues such as plastic pollution in our oceans and the harm caused by land-based litter ending up in our waterways.
Getting an early insight to the main litter items from Clean Up Australia Day participants will help us shape future programs that are most relevant to the issues we have here.”

Clean Up Australia Day is the nation’s largest community-based environmental event, running since 1989. Volunteers have contributed more than 32 million hours to litter-collection in the annual event, removing over 344 thousand tonnes of rubbish!

If you’d like to help out on Clean Up Australia Day and join a local event visit: www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au

What waste should go where?

Guide to recycling and wasteIf you’re confused about what to do with specific items of waste, or you just want to check that you’re being a good sort, then our simple A-Z Guides to waste and recycling are for you!

This one shows common waste items and how they can be best handled in North and North West Tasmania, whether in kerbside recycling, as garbage, at special collection points or as second hand goods:

This one delves into the southern region’s recycling bins and lists all those items that can be put into your kerbside recycling bin:

When we each do our bit to reduce, reuse and recycle it’s good for all Tasmanians!

Northern Tasmania Grants Program…Now Open!

Applications are now open for the Northern Tasmanian Waste Management Group (NTWMG) Resource Recovery and Waste Minimisation Grants program!

Resource Recovery and Waste Minimisation Grants

Financial support is available to eligible organisations in northern Tasmania that are working to decrease the amount of waste sent to landfill from core activities and/or increase the recovery of resources from waste that would otherwise be lost to landfill.

This funding program responds to the increasing financial pressures associated with meeting landfill management, environmental and rehabilitation standards, as well as the need to reduce the strain on landfill airspace and the environment by recycling and reusing materials.  Please see below for eligibility criteria, Grant Guidelines and the 2017/18 Application Form.

The grants are for eligible project costs associated with procuring infrastructure or educational materials necessary to improve waste management practices in the northern Tasmanian area.

A funding allocation of $70,000 is available under the 2017/18 Resource Recovery and Waste Minimisation Grants program.

  • APPLICATIONS OPEN:
    4th September 2017
  • APPLICATIONS CLOSE:
    5.00pm 27th October 2017

Applications will be assessed by the NTWMG Committee on 17th November at Launceston City Council Offices. Grant recipients will be announced in December 2017.

verticaldividerRethink Waste aims to improve our efforts at reducing, reusing and
recycling in order to decrease the amount of waste that ends up as landfill.
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