Beyond Waste-The Community Charter
Environment Victoria’s Charter for Materials’ Efficiency is a vision for the people of Victoria for achieving sustainable level of consumption of materials.
Steps to a Materials’ Efficient Victoria
At Environment Victoria we have a vision of how Victoria could achieve a sustainable level of consumption of materials. This ideal involves a reduction in the consumption of raw materials in production processes, as well as a focus on the possibilities for reuse and recycling of products at the end of their purpose-built life.
Although Victoria achieved a recovery rate of 48% of the waste stream (by weight) in 2001, the amount of waste going to landfill continues to increase every year. This means that the consumption of throw-away items is increasing at alarming rate.
Clearly Victoria’s recycling system is not enough – pressure needs to be brought upon State and Federal governments, local councils, industry and the community to change their attitudes towards consumption and the creation of waste.
It is time for Victorians to reassess the linear processes generating waste, including the extraction of raw materials, design and manufacturing of products and their distribution, purchase, consumption and disposal. A comprehensive strategy aimed at a closed-loop use of resources will not only reduce the production of waste and pollution, it will also reduce costs to industry, government and the consuming public.
To achieve sustainability we need to find ways to maintain the qualities of life we value while dramatically reducing our consumption of resources and impact on the environment. With this in mind Environment Victoria, with funding and input from EcoRecycle Victoria, has developed a strategy document (Materials Efficiency Toolkit) to provide the community with the information needed to reignite the debate around materials efficiency within industry, government and the public.
The strategy was developed through extensive consultation and input from community and environment groups and expert advice from the Advisory Committee for Materials Efficiency (ACME) (See Appendix 1of linked document).