basin bullet

As I See It

If you look over any of the town rubbish dumps around the Desert Channels region, you’ll see a mountain of resources that could be recycled: plastic, paper, cardboard, steel, batteries and greenery. We’re out on a limb, we’re told, it’s too far from any recycling centre, and too expensive to get stuff to the coast. So ... it’s all too hard.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way. A Longreach couple only put their rubbish bin out every 4 to 6 weeks ... and it never smells! They compost all scraps, rinse and flatten plastic and metal containers (which they send to the coast with willing travellers), and flatten cardboard boxes for re-use.

If one couple can do it, why can’t the rest of us? I’m embarrassed to say that, while we compost all vegetable scraps, my family of four generates the best part of a full bin per week.

When Dana Lyons, the Cows with Guns man, wrote in his song, Recycle: ‘Recycle cans, recycle glass; recycle at home, recycle in class; reduce your garbage of every kind; reuse everything, reuse your mind! Recycle, recycle ...’ he was exhorting kids to think of the future and minimise resource use.  He knew that if you could get the kids into it, they’d do a number on their parents. We shouldn’t be leaving it to our national and civic leaders to show the way, we should be providing leadership from the bottom.

The Editor