Building smarter
When we reduce waste, we reduce our impact on the environment including the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that go into creating products.
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Sustainable materials
With increasing populations and sprawling development, we need to be looking at more sustainable ways of building. Many builders are now engaging with exciting new materials that revive waste and reduce emissions: tiles made from broken glass and textile scraps, as well as environmentally-friendly concrete and ‘green steel’.
© Mirvac / SMaRT Centre, UNSW
Reduce and reuse
There are many options to reuse or bring products back to life to save throwing them away. For example, you can browse your local charity store or Facebook swap and sell groups for vintage clothing. Find a repair cafe nearby where you can get free help to fix your broken items.
Recycled products
Today we have many quality recycled products available to us. Clothes, furniture, backpacks, blankets, stationery and packaging are being increasingly made out of recycled materials. Keep an eye out when shopping.
When you are discarding waste, check out the Australian Recycling Label. This will help to make sure you are giving the materials the best chance of being revived in new products. This reduces the emissions and other types of environmental damage involved in making products from virgin materials.
Earth friendly concrete
Building something? Using Earth Friendly Concrete reduces the CO₂ emissions associated with common cement by 80 to 90%.
