A rubbish dream of Utopia

WELCOME to Utopia, a place where you can consume plenty, yet miraculously generate zero waste.

There is no need for ugly landfills here in Utopia, for there is no rubbish to begin with.

Even children’s nappies don’t exist, for our babies are toilet trained from birth.

Yes, here in Utopia … hang on, sorry, wake up. Back to the real world.

I’ll try again.

Welcome to Mildura, a place where we consume plenty and sadly generate plenty of waste.

We don’t mean to, and we are trying desperately to reduce it, but, you know, it just builds up.

Here in Mildura, we are given a small red bin to dispose of waste that is not organic or recyclable. It’s collected fortnightly, not weekly like almost everywhere else in Australia.

The result is a bit messy. It leaves overflowing smelly bins lining our streets, while others have taken to illegally dumping their rubbish in national parks or by our pristine river.

Yet, with this in mind, our council has released a new litter strategy that is working toward “zero” waste to landfill and “a future where people and businesses take responsibility for their waste disposal”.

Ummm?

Now, I ask this. Is this vision Utopian or Real World?

While Mildura council should be applauded for its bold attempts to reduce harm to our environment, its new three-bin strategy is proving a nightmare for many, particularly families.

A Sunraysia Daily survey found 94 per cent wanted the return of a weekly general waste bin service.

And any story written about the bin system in Mildura generates enormous reaction from largely disgruntled residents.

So council must understand there will be skepticism surrounding its “zero” waste to landfill vision.

Just where will all the rubbish go for starters? A broken stapler, a busted chair, old stuffed toys, bedsheets or clothes, all the packaging that is not recyclable? Where do they put that sort of stuff in Utopia?

Council rightly pointed out that we must reduce the amount of waste that is buried in landfill, not just from an environmental standpoint, but also economically, with costs set to double over the next two years.

Council says to achieve that reduction the most effective way is to “avoid the generation of waste in the first place”.

“You can do this by choosing products that have less or no packaging, buying fresh and taking your own bags instead of relying on plastic wrapped items or ensuring that if you need to buy something with packaging then make sure that it can be reused or recycled,” a council spokesperson said.

Idealistic, maybe, but is this a realistic expectation of our society? Or does it fail to understand the hugely socio-economically diverse community in which we live?

Is it not condescending to tell us what we should and shouldn’t buy, or expect all of us to eat only fresh fruit and vegetables or non-packaged food? Are all busy, working parents expected to go back to stewing their own apples rather than buying them conveniently packaged for their babies? Or, worse still, be expected to again use cloth nappies?

Is that the world they’re citizens are living in?

As a community, we all need to buy in to council’s push to reduce waste, that is not in dispute.

But to achieve that, the targets need to be realistic. The bin services need to line up with what can be reasonably achieved by local families at that time, and together we can improve from there.

Dumping all responsibility of waste disposal on local people and businesses will only create an enormous stink.

And Mildura will certainly be no Utopia.