Circular Economy Policies
If elected I will fight to implement Circular Economy policies as a way to reduce waste, address climate change, increase opportunities for local jobs, and create more social cohesion.
Annual Hard Rubbish Collection
As a kid, I remember always looking forward to Hard Rubbish collection. I would spend hours during the day scouring the streets for materials to help build my projects. I would collect whatever I could find and bring it home in order try and create the vision that I had in my mind.
As a kid this gave me a fantastic creative outlet and access to free materials to play and experiment with. I attribute these important creative moments to my desire to pursue a degree in Industrial Design after I finished high school.
While I don't quite have the time at the moment to pursue such creative projects (especially with a young family) I look forward to when our kiddo is slightly older and we can look for fun projects to work on. That's one of the reasons why I am fighting to bring back our Annual Hard Rubbish collection.
There are economic, social, and environmental reasons as to why we should do so. Annual Hard Rubbish promotes reuse and recycling, which can save money and reduce waste, and it also gives people an opportunity to socialise and meet other people who live on their street.
My only suggestion would be to have our Annual Hard Rubbish collection during Spring or Summer to ensure that the rain does not destroy items or material that would otherwise be usable.
A Satellite Recycled Goods Shop
If we want to encourage people to repair, reuse, and recycle then we need to provide the community with a space to do so. I think we should construct another Recycled Goods Shop in the southern suburbs of Darebin where people can access these skills and services, while also meeting like minded people, much like a repair café.
I imagine that this would be a satellite centre which would share resources, goods, and skills with the main Resource and Recovery Centre currently in Reservoir.
We need to find ways to deal with our rubbish and waste in a socially responsible way, and we can no longer rely on large companies such as Red Cycle, who have proven that they are unwilling to manage the large amount of waste that we are producing. We need robust community solutions that suit our needs.