Making a green New Year’s resolution could not only help the environment but benefit your hip pocket, says Taronga Western Plains Zoo’s Reece Haenga.
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The facilities coordinator is encouraging people to consider making a difference to the environment as part of their plans for 2019.
“It’s nothing huge that people have to commit to. It’s the little things people can work on and you can improve throughout the year,” Mr Haenga said.
“It might seem insignificant to you – you're just one person – but if 10 per cent of the people in Dubbo did it, and 10 per cent of people in the next town, it has a huge flow-on.”
Reduce your food waste
To cut down on the amount of food being thrown out, Mr Haenga recommends checking the fridge and cupboard before going shopping to prevent buying items that aren’t needed.
“The statistics from Oz Harvest say that one in five grocery bags of items ends up in landfill due to food waste. If you imagine you’ve bought five bags of groceries at Woolies and that cost you maybe $150, 20 per cent of that is technically going straight to the bin,” Mr Haenga said.
Reduce your carbon footprint
Mr Haenga said people often associate carbon footprints with vehicles, the agricultural sector and electricity, however sitting at home and streaming movies also has a big impact.
“In the US alone data centres use about 94 billion kilowatts of electricity per year,” he said.
“Sometimes you just want to sit on the lounge and chill out but it's about being conscience of how often you're doing those things and maybe going offline for a while and taking the dogs for a walk or going to the park with the kids.”
Read up on palm oil
Palm oil is present in a lot of foods. Rather than cutting it out completely, Mr Haenga said people should check their products to ensure the palm oil in them is sustainably sourced.
“There's a lot of websites out there where you can look for that information,” he said.
Reuse coffee cups and water bottles
Using items like keep cups helps to keep singe-use plastic to a minimum, reducing the amount going into waterways, oceans and landfill, Mr Haenga said.
“Most places if you take a keep cup you'll get a discount on your coffee so it saves you money there. It might only be 50 cents but you add that up over every coffee for a year and it's a significant amount of money,” he said.
Walk or ride to work
Mr Haenga said living in Dubbo meant everything is fairly close together. Keeping the car at home once a week was not only good for the environment, it would boost your fitness and save you money on petrol, he said.
“You can get up that little bit earlier one day a week or one day a month and make the effort to walk to work. Get a friend or a colleague and say 'hey, do you want to walk to work this week?’” he said.