As plastic-free July has come to an end, Wodonga’s environmentally-conscious citizens have a new way to care about the Earth.
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The Sustainable Activity Centre launched a series of recycling containers on Wednesday, which will allow people to recycle containers used for beauty, cleaning and dental products, plus pens and postage packaging.
Centre director Claire Greenhalgh said she was excited to get involved in the national TerraCycle program.
She encouraged community members to bring in the packaging, instead of throwing it in landfill, as the small amount of money earned for each item would go to charity.
“Anyone can do it,” she said.
“It solves a lot of problems.”
Wodonga and Albury Toward Climate Health member Lizette Salmon supported the new service, especially after completing a month using minimal plastic.
“Although plastic-free July is all about avoiding single-use plastics, we recognise that some plastic products are difficult to avoid and not everyone is as motivated as some of us are, so we welcome this new recycling service,” she said.
Wodonga circus trainer Ruby Rowat, who also achieved a month mostly without plastic, said it was not as difficult as someone might imagine.
“It’s not hard if you know what they end result is,” she said.
“Part of eating healthy is eating healthy for the Earth as well … it becomes automatic.”
Ms Rowat said she always used her own bags and boxes when shopping.
If she did have to buy food in plastic from the supermarket, she make sure it could have another purpose.
“You can try to buy bigger yoghurt containers you can use again,” she said.
“(Plastic-free July) made me aware that I choose plastic when I could choose glass.”
The push for avoiding plastic bags had become less of a prominent issue in recent years, but WATCH encouraged households to continue thinking about if they really needed to keep using all their plastic bags or bottles.
“That kind of stuff is just easy,” Ms Rowat said.