Altona’s Adeline Barham reuses coffee grounds and shredded paper from local businesses, collects bottle tops to be made into prosthetic limbs and invites apartment dwellers to drop off kitchen scraps outside her house.
She is among a groundswell of Hobsons Bay residents who are reducing the amount of waste they generate and thinking of innovative ways to recycle and re-use.
Hobsons Bay council is urging residents to reduce waste following the closure of the council’s recycling contractor, SKM.
The council has introduced a fortnightly drop-off for recyclables at its Altona depot, with the next to be held on August 24.
Ms Barham said she tried to divert as much waste from landfill as she could.
“I get my coffee grounds from the local coffee shops and I use them for compost and fertiliser,” she said. “I get shredded paper from offices for compost and bedding for chooks and guinea pigs.”
She has a bin outside her home for members of the community to drop off green waste for compost as part of the ShareWaste initiative.
“People come and drop off everything, like grass cuttings, vegie scraps – all that sort of stuff,” she said.
“It’s called ShareWaste, so people who live in apartments, they might not have an option and they don’t want to put their food in the bin, so they come to me as a drop-off point.”
Ms Barham takes soft plastics to a local supermarket for recycling.
While Hobsons Bay had been one of only four Victorian councils that recycled plastic shopping bags, Coles and Woolworths supermarkets accept flexible plastics for recycling.
Through the Lions Club of Altona, Ms Barham is organising a collection for a company called Envision Hands, which uses bottle tops to make prosthetics for children.
Altona’s Louis Joel Arts and Community Centre is in the process of becoming the drop-off point.
