Casey’s Green Living in Casey Champion Monika

The City of Casey’s Green Living in Casey Champions help promote sustainable living by sharing their green living stories and tips.

This month we welcome Green Living in Casey Champion Monika Lee!

Largely influenced by her parents who were careful with resources and disposing of waste, Monika found Council’s environmental and waste events and seminars of great benefit and encourage her to reduce waste at home/

Having worked in a Medical Centre for many years, Monika was horrified by the waste produced at the centre. So she started arranging for out-of-date medical supplies to be sent to local Animal Refugee centres and overseas to communities in need.

She also organised bread tags, small plastic bottle lids and soft plastics collections in the Medical Centre so that they could all be recycled.

Her proudest achievement was organising a collection for the Uplift Project, where her workplace collected 580 second-hand bras to be sent overseas to others that needed them.

At home Monika and her husband have reduced their waste so much that they only have one small bag of waste per week.

By reducing, reusing, recycling and composting, as well as only buying what they need, they’ve found it easy to reduce their waste.

Monika also loves sharing the excess compost seedlings that come up in her compost and was able to share 150 tomato seedlings with friends and neighbours.

Their kitchen upgrade was done by a local business that was able to respray all the surfaces, rather than replace them. So, the kitchen went from green to white, and no new items were needed!

Monika’s top three ‘Green Living’ tips are:

  1. Start with small changes: separate and collect your soft plastics, or make sure you are recycling everything you can.
  2. Start a compost bin: you can reduce your waste, create great soil for your garden, and you get bonus compost seedlings.
  3. Donating your unwanted items (that are still in good condition) to the opp shop means your items have another life. While buying from the opp shops means you are supporting them and you’re saving money by not buying items brand new.

Interested in becoming a Green Living in Casey Champion?

Whether you are just starting your green living journey, are a keen composter or gardener, or work hard to reduce your waste – if you are committed to sustainable living we would love to hear your story.

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