One of the recurring themes during the campaign for the recent Australian Federal election was the old Environment versus the Economy argument. I am not going to suggest here which political party was better for the environment or start giving away political advice! The election is over and I personally prefer to let people make up their own minds in any case.
Instead I want to question why people believe we must support either “The Economy” or “The Environment”. It seems to be such closed minded thinking to me. With a little clever thinking, we as a society can surely come up with a way of growing the economy sustainably while helping to preserve our environment and way of life for future generations.
Why Choose between the Environment and the Economy?
I often ask people why they think they have to choose between “The Economy” and the “The Environment” and I get various answers, but they generally have a similar theme. Many say in Australia we are reliant on mining for our economic prosperity. To this group, anything that will potentially reduce the mining industry will have a large detrimental effect on our economy and standard of living. When we hear about mining operations we often hear about how many thousands of jobs will be created both directly and indirectly by a specific project or company. Vested interests from some large businesses spend a lot of money to propagate and reinforce this perception.
These are businesses that benefit from things staying the same, but certainly not all. Innovative businesses will change with the times and take advantage of new opportunities. In fact in a changing world, businesses that are unable to adapt and innovate will eventually go broke. In the longer term these companies will not benefit the Australian economy and will not create job growth.
I’m not suggesting we should suddenly stop all mining or anything along those lines. But we should try and support innovative companies offering a better alternative, while still proving quality jobs for Australians. We should also send the message to our political representatives that we want them to release polices that support new technologies and businesses that can provide the economic benefit we require without the environmental toll we are paying, by doing things the same old way we have done for 100 years or more.
Australian Innovation
Australians are famous for innovation (for example wifi technology was developed by an Australian scientist) but we are equally famous for not commercialising our innovations, instead having them go overseas for the benefit of multinational companies instead.
We at Reward Recycling believe strongly in supporting our economy and creating local jobs for Australians, while at the same time protecting our environment for future generations to come.
We are proudly 100% Australian owned and run. It is our mission to find the best
Recycling and the circular economy is all about making the best use of our existing resources. It is about having the products and services we need and desire, at reduced cost, simply by reducing or eliminating waste. Why spend time, energy and money digging up and refining increasingly scarce resources when you can more efficiently reuse old products and packaging to produce the products we all love and need.
Recycling into New Products
Here at Reward Recycling we leverage the government Containers for Change scheme to make it easy and sustainable for people to recycle drinking containers. This is an important step forward, because people using the scheme sends a message to government that we are prepared to do this and that it is imperative.
Perhaps more importantly, is that it sends the message back to the manufacturers that we demand they make use of the recycled containers they produced in the first place. This motivates the manufacturers to come up with their own innovative systems for reusing their own product packaging. An excellent way to build the momentum needed for real change. I am hoping the success of the container refund scheme has paved the way to recycle and incorporate more and more waste products as raw materials for new products.
If you want to get involved in recycling with us or even if you just want to talk about what can be done, then please phone us up on 0477 799 667 or email us on [email protected] and we will be only too happy to help.
Recent Comments