An important part of living more lightly on this earth is to reduce the use of resources and the amount of items going to landfill. Nothing in the natural world is wasted. Instead the output from one system goes on to feed another system. For instance a trees that dies, slowly returns to the earth in a process that feeds numerous micro-organisms and provides nutrients for other plants to grow. Sadly humans have created a production system where commodities are designed to be thrown away when we no longer need them. This has resulted in the creation of large waste sites where festering mounds of discarded materials leach toxic chemicals into the surrounding environment and use valuable land space. To see a landfill site in all its ugly stinking mess provides a striking example of why we need to change our system of production and consumption. The Adelaide Sustainability Centre ran a series of demonstrations at WOMAD this year around this topic. Themed as “Zero Waste Life Hacks” they covered a number of facets of daily life from seed saving and composting, DIY home products, how to darn a sock and how to make bricks from bottles. A number of useful resources and links from these WOMAD workshops can be accessed by clicking here. The Adelaide Sustainability Centre regularly runs a number of workshops that are designed to help us learn skills to live more lightly on this planet. Sign up for the newsletter and keep up to date with the latest workshops .   Further resources:

• Story of Stuff Movie
• Circular Economy Australia
• Cradle to Cradle Manufacturing

Australian Zero-Waste blogs:

• The Rouge Ginger
• Treading my Own Path

The Adelaide Sustainability Centre is a drop off point for:

• Hard to recycle products including Oral Care products, Mailing Satchels and Beauty Products through a partnership with TerraCycle Australia.
• Mobiles and phone accessories through a partnership with Mobile Muster.