Immediate Actions

• Refuse
  Avoid single use items
• Reduce
  Only buy things if strictly needed, and choose less packaging.
• Reuse
  Buy second-hand items, or if new – choose products built to last.
• Recycle
  Recycle what you can, and choose products made from recycled materials.
• Know your hood
  Find out what recycling and reuse options are near you.
• Compost
  Find a way to compost your organic waste.
• Let your money talk
  Vote with your wallet – buy less wasteful products. And demand more of them from producers!
• Assess
  Do a personal waste audit, to see where to improve.
• Spread it!
  Spread good ideas, and involve family and friends.

Long-term actions

• Borrow
  Create informal networks to lend out items.
• Be a leader
  No way to recycle? Consider starting a small recycling business yourself.
• Stay smart
  Educate yourself about the issues and solutions.

Immediate Actions

• Plan and measure
  Make or renew your waste management (WM) strategy, and set goals, priorities, and deadlines. For example a National WM Act, National WM Plan, or local WM programme.
  – Prioritise waste reduction. Set targets for the amount of waste produced, ban unnecessary items like many single-use plastics, redesign products to be durable, repairable, and reusable.
  – Outline how to better manage any waste that is produced, i.e. by making separate collections of different waste types compulsory, and ensuring recycling takes place as close as possible to where the waste is produced.
• Responsibilities
  Define roles and responsibilities of local governments and companies. For example, introduce Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes for industry and businesses to fund separate collections and recycling, and define whether recycling targets must be met at regional or municipal level.

Long-term actions

• Bring in rules Once you have a strategy, support this with regulations defining permitting powers and procedures, waste accounting procedures, monitoring programmes, etc.
• Consequences
  Plan in enforcement and policing – what will you do if local authorities do not meet the targets? What will the penalties be for littering?
• Money
  Make goals set in the plan have funding, e.g. for prevention measures, awareness raising, reuse activities, waste collection infrastructure, incentives for local businesses to become less wasteful or for people to implement local recycling and composting activities. The economic benefits of better management of resources, reduced collection and disposal costs and jobs created in the new system will pay off!
• Support the flow
  Support the development of markets for recycled materials, e.g. promote Green Public Procurement, and give priority to recycled products.
• Nurture
  Trust the creativity of businesses, and create a favourable environment that supports waste-savvy innovations.
• Rethink the cycle
  Promote Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as a way to finance better management of waste items like packaging and electronics, and to support redesign of products by industries, in order to minimise the use of hard to-recycle materials. Promote Deposit Refund Systems (DRS) as the best way to ensure materials are preserved!
• Knowledge Support lifelong learning and research to build society’s knowledge and skills around resource use and waste management.

Immediate actions

• Rethink 

Recognise waste as a resource, and an opportunity to increase profitability – recycling and composting reduces disposal costs, and triggers new business opportunities.

• Educate
  Teach the customer – is your product recyclable?
  How and where should it be disposed of?
• Be a pioneer
  Deposit schemes (e.g. putting a small deposit on drinks containers to ensure take-back) can be launched even if no national scheme is in place.
• Wrap it smart
  Always opt for less packaging, smarter packaging, and reusable packaging. The same goes for products!
• Stay safe
  Compost can only be used in agriculture if not polluted by other waste. Recycling may require specific safeguards for workers. Some plastics include harmful substances, making them unsuitable e.g. for food packaging or toys.
• The afterlife
  What will happen to your product after use? Recyclable packaging that is in an area with no recycling collections may end up as litter. If compostable plastics end up in landfill they emit methane as they biodegrade. 

Long-term actions

• Inspire others Create new markets based around innovative, reusable or resource-savvy products.
• Rethink business models ’Do more with less’ – e.g. create lending services, selling the use of an item, not the item itself.
• Rethink resources Use recycled materials rather than virgin resources – the possibilities for recycled glass, plastics, paper and metals are huge. Composted organics are a great replacement for peat or mineral fertilisers.