Why is recycling and reducing the impact of landfill waste important?

Everything we buy is transformed from raw materials and transported for sale. Sand becomes glass, bauxite becomes aluminium and raw earth becomes tiles. Often it involves shipping materials halfway around the world. The energy used to make and transport a product is called it embodied energy. It makes sense to make the most of all of the consumed embodied energy and resources by reusing or recycling every product we can to percent landfill.

Australia disposes of 32 million tonnes of solid waste into landfill every year. 40% of this is attributable to the construction and demolition sector (ABS, 2002-03)