What a load of RUBBISH it's everywhere, it's complicated .

Everywhere I go rubbish everywhere , it's getting worse. Waverly council has collected more illegally dumped  crap in the first two months this year than the whole previous year. This is not surprising but  disturbing. Its  an upsetting site   seeing  things  thrown out which  aren't really rubbish, its stuff people just don't want anymore , it might be out of fashion , they  could be updating , so they dump it, obviously few think of  re-using, re-cycling, donating to charities, or not to buy the stuff in the first place. It's a transient accommodation world now, especially with hundreds of thousands of foreign students annually living here in Australia. 

Thanks to our a insatiable thirst for constant mindless consumption at places like Kmart , Target, IKEA etc, we're hyper shoppers , with no thought of  the long term environmental repercussions. At  7 billion people around how much longer can this go on for ? It's   unsustainable.

Sadly most things we buy are made in China or by third world exploited labour.

There are too many ethical issues to deal with . Anything we buy just doesn't last long anymore, so even if we don't won't to keep shopping, we have no choice....

I know from personal experience - donating is a hassle at times. I  take most items  to Salvstion Army or St Vincent De Paul charity stores, it's an effort I love to make , many others won't. Larger items such as furniture need to be picked up by their  trucks - yes it's a hassle to make an  appointment , being there for the collection, worse still when those charities claim my donation is not good enough !!! So we keep on dumping , on the streets  non stop, yet every time I see these mountains of rubbish I get so upset. I feel guilty cause we just don't love the planet...we are shitting on Mother Nature. One day maybe not now, but our next generation will be cursing us for  mindless selfishness. 

I feel after we dumped God, after we stopped believing in something bigger than us, we turned inwards in the age of narrisstic self focused consumption. At least religion didn't destroy the oceans.

We are heading for environmental disaster. I worry nothing will be done till it's too late. 

The answer is a combination of ethics and regulations. 

Local government councils collect the rubbish to dump it in tips. We need to pay a dumping fee added onto the cost of every thing we buy, like an environmental tax, so if it's $10, at the till it's an extra 2-5 % added. maybe working for welfare  program could extend to recycling at the tips, or where it's being picked up. Maybe the good stuff dumped can be taken to places where people can pic it up for free to either re use or resale for free. Let's create a smart phone app, take a pic of what you no pager want, leave it outside with its location, then it can get picked up by who ever wants it? 

We need to start education programs at schools about how happiness is not about buying more stuff unless we really need it, happiness is about experiences , not consumption.  Show videos of the exploited workers seeing away for those terrible dangerous conditions in far way lands...I can tell you as a Greek, making people feel guilty goes a long way.

We can give tax deductions to companies which  make biodegradable products, then put extra taxes on the parts or materials in the products that are non recyclable. 

Like cigarette packaging , every product or clothing sold needs a sticker on it with an environmental impact statement on it. 

We need to allow an army of   " Rubbish Reduction" volunteers allowed to roam freely into any shopping centre or store to confront consumers or question their purchases. Why are you buying this?

do you really need it ? What will happen to it when you're finished with it? How will you dispose of it? 

All products need an environmental impact statement based on materials, length of use, dumping etc, to come in a final rating of 1- 100 on also added to the base of each sales docket. 

Technology needs to work with social media, we need to develop a mind frame that's it's cool to re use , recycle or share .  Maybe we can not throw good  things out till we find someone to give them too. 

Let's face it, this is radical politics here at work, saving the planet means less consumption, equals less rubbish, this goes against the supply and demand economy. Ideally let's raise the wages in the third world, if we pay more we would hopefully consume less.

All that rubbish on my street is a global issue, yet I worry nothing will be done till it's too late...

Maybe  future climate change will cause massive disasters, I believe we'll be so spooked

Our collective energies will be about saving the environment , that's when the age of consumption will be over. The changes we need now won't happen till the are forced upon us later.