Australians spend an average of $59 per week on household equipment and $44 on new clothes, making us one of the top consumer nations. Most of the stuff we buy eventually ends up being thrown away and as our population continues to grow this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
Switching our habits from shopping to swapping or buying second-hand goods can make a huge difference to the amount of waste we create. Making the switch also has a positive impact on the environment (and our wallets) because it saves:
Choose one of the actions below or come up with another idea to promote sharing and swapping as an alternative to shopping:
Quick tip: Donate any unclaimed/unsold goods to a local charity store.
Spread the word about what you are doing and why by taking photos of you and your friends in action and sharing or posting them on social media!
Keep track of all the items you have swapped/traded. What volume of waste did you save from going to landfill by finding it a new home (e.g. how many wheelie bins or backpacks full?)
Approximately 50% of hard waste that is taken to the dump could have been recovered or is still in good working condition.
The average Australian spends $59 per week on household equipment and $44 dollars on new clothes.
On average Australians spend $9.5 billion a year on gadgets versus $5.1 billion a year on fashion.
The average Australian household throws away 17.7 kilos of waste every week.