Arts Monday’s Jane Raffan interviews Ruth Hessey, Director of Communications for the Total Environment Centre and Writer/Director of the award winning short documentary film Waste Not.

The film’s tag line is “A beautiful and emotional film about garbage”.

It is a surprisingly optimistic and powerful message about how everyday people and their attitudes can, and do, make a difference.

More about the TEC here: https://www.tec.org.au/home

More about the film: https://www.wastenot.org.au/flash/

Interview I

Interview II

“Waste Not is a film about where your garbage goes, who sorts it for you, and what it is worth if it isn’t just tossed into landfill. It’s easier and cheaper to retrieve gold from old computers for instance, than to dig it up. Organics can be used to create fertiliser and green electricity and yet each Australian sends half a tonne of food waste to landfill each year where it is contaminated with chemicals and e-waste. We recycle only 50% of all our waste.”

“There is an alternative to environmental apocalypse and we don’t have to wait for the politicians to make it happen. All we really need to do is be creative and use our imaginations to turn this waste into wealth again. Waste Not talks to scientists, workers at waste depots, environment campaigners, gardeners and even a famous chef about how easy it is to save the planet by simply recycling properly. Waste Not looks at the big picture as well as the small: our entire society could be reconfigured if we adopted a zero waste, maximum efficiency economic model. Waste Not introduces us to Michael Mobbs and his inner city Sustainable House, Luke Powell the head chef at Tetsuya’s legendary restaurant and a passionate composter, James Bradfield Moody, the head of development at the CSIRO, Jeff Angel, executive director of the Total Environment Centre, and half a dozen more.” [Ronin Films, 2011]