"There's always more you can do".
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That's the message Halve Waste program coordinator Michelle Wilkinson wants people to take away from Albury Wodonga's week long Sustainable Living Festival, which began on Saturday.
Ms Wilkinson encouraged the community to check out the festival website online to see what events, webinars and activities they could learn from and take part in.
"Even if you think you're doing a really good job, maybe there's something you haven't seen before," she said.
'There's something for everyone."
Promoting sustainable living on the Border, the festival includes tours of sustainable homes, farms and waste centres, and workshops covering vegetable gardening, gift wrapping and art materials.
Albury Council resource recover team leader Andrea Baldwin said it offered opportunities for community members to increase their knowledge and education in recycling, re-using and minimising waste.
"it really just highlights the importance of what we are going through, waste and recycling is a fairly big industry," she said.
"Whether it be locally, nationally or even globally we all have an impact or can position ourselves to make a decision to do a bit better than what we're doing.
"Everyone has still to be further educated and I suppose we're just showcasing the opportunities out there for the individuals in our region.
"It's just an opportunity for everyone to do a little bit more and make the extra effort."
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Ms Wilkinson said people would be able to access the festival's events after it was over.
"The Albury Wodonga Sustainable Living Festival website will have the podcasts and the webinars and the video tutorials available and then you've got our exhibition open here at the library for all of November," she said.
The exhibition Ms Wilkinson referred to is the Albury Library Museum's Waste to Wonder wall, which showcases what different materials can be recycled into.
"We really want to show people (recycling) doesn't just go away somewhere, things are happening," she said.
"So whether you're putting cans in your yellow lidded bin or taking tyres out to the transfer station, they're being processed and they are being made into some really cool stuff."
Sponsoring the festival is Halve Waste, an initiative of Albury, Wodonga, Federation, Towong, Greater Hume, Indigo and Alpine Shire Councils with a goal to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by 50 per cent.
Ms Wilkinson said the sustainability festival was part of that bigger aim.
"Ten years ago we identified that the landfill is going to be closed in 2020 and look at the massive effort we've made," she said.
"In Albury we've halved our waste to landfill, so we want to do that same target again, so half again by 2030.
"It's not going to be as easy in the next few years to keep reducing waste, so we've got to reduce what we buy in the packaging and all that, but also how we recycle things, so we're always looking at new and different and innovative ideas of how we can do that."
Ms Wilkinson said attitudes towards recycling had definitely changed over the last decade.
"People are frightened of change at the start," she said.
"But when you can show them the connection with extending the life of our landfill ... connecting them to what's actually happening with that recycling so they can have a tangible way of seeing what I'm doing makes a difference, that shifts that attitude for sure."
You can check out all of the festival events at the website here.
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