Mission to make south west less rubbish

A Quindalup woman is helping south west locals reduce their impact on the environment with the launch of a new business focused on sustainability and doing more with what you’ve got.

Jo Kennedy set up A Single Leaf South West just last year, after she moved to the area in 2008, to help people “be less rubbish with their rubbish” through a variety of recycling guides and workshops.

Ms Kennedy said after moving to the south west of WA from the United Kingdom, she felt lucky to be in such a ‘beautiful part of the world’ and wanted to be part of protecting it.

After years of reducing her own impact on the region, she decided it was time to help others do the same.

“We all need to take action to help reduce our impact on the environment, and we have to do it now,” Ms Kennedy said.

“With this business i’m trying to inspire action.

“I want to help others do more with what they’ve got.”

Small changes lead to big things

Ms Kennedy said everyone could make better choices to help protect the environment, and said even small, conscious changes could make a difference.

“There are actually a lot of things that you can do to easily reduce your impact,” she said.

“One thing I’m often told is it’s too expensive.

“But there are quite a few things that you can do which are cheaper than not living sustainably.”

She said reducing food waste, or not wasting food, was one of the biggest changes locals could make.

“Not wasting food, it’s gonna save you money and help the planet.”

She said over a third of all food produced in the world was wasted.

“That’s not all in our homes – it’s also the supermarket, and food that never leaves the farm.

“But we can do our bit to not contribute to that.”

Guides to a sustainable south west

When Ms Kennedy first moved to WA she was unable to work, so she chose to construct community reuse and recycle guides to help locals find places they could leave old or broken things.

She said many stores in the south west were reusing old furniture, appliances, and food; and she wanted to make it easier for short-on-time locals to find them.

“When I first moved here, it took me a long time to find places that help with sustainability – like where you can buy food with no packaging, and where you can get old clothes and equipment fixed,” she said.

“I had plenty of time to go around and find out all these things.

“So then I started hosting educational workshops to help share that information with people.”

From Bunbury to Augusta

A Single Leaf South West operates workshops all over the south west, but prior to its start-up Ms Kennedy’s first workshop in the region was a DIY cleaning products class.

“One of the things I do is teach people how to make really simple cleaning and body products so they don’t have any toxic chemicals because that can be released into our waterways,” she said.

“This workshop was popular because things like this are so much easier if someone shows you.”

Ms Kennedy said although practices like DIY cleaning products were normal to her now, many people didn’t know how to do it.

“If you don’t know how to make them, then you don’t know how to make them.”

“There are so many homemade cleaning recipes online and it can be very overwhelming.”

Ms Kennedy said because south west towns were so close to the beach, decisions like what cleaning products to use were important.

“We need to be really careful about the decisions we make when living so close to the ocean.”

“The products I help people create don’t do any harm to the environment, don’t create algae blooms, and are non-toxic to aquatic life.”

She said she was passionate about making sustainability easy for people trying to do the right thing.

Dunsborough Repair Co Op

Just last week Ms Kennedy launched a new volunteer Repair Co Op in Dunsborough’s Community Garden.

The Co Op is expected to run for two hours on the last Sunday of every month and is a place people can bring clothes, appliances, furniture, equipment and more to be fixed.

“The idea is just to help people,” Ms Kennedy said.

“A lot of people don’t know how to fix their own things..

“If they want to learn then we’ll teach them, and if they don’t want to learn and they just want to get it fixed then we’ll do that too.”

She said the volunteer service also wanted to inspire people to fix things themselves.

“We want to give people the confidence to try.”

“If something’s already broken, it doesn’t matter. So take it apart and see if you can fix it.”

“If it’s broken anyway, you might as well have a go,” she said.

If anything is unable to be fixed at the Co Op, Ms Kennedy said volunteers would be able to direct people to where they could recycle it or where someone may be able to reuse it.

“There are so many artists in the south west working with unusual things.

“I’ve got a big list of people that might be interested in something,” she said.

Action needed now

Ms Kennedy said action was needed now to help save the environment.

“This decade is the last chance we’ve got to change. And we can do it,” she said. “I want everybody to help, and I want to help them.”

She said people can feel guilty about not having time to do ‘the right thing’ but she was passionate about helping them bridge that gap.

“We all need to just do what we can do. There are things that can be done that are different and still worthwhile.”

The Repair Co Op is looking for a qualified electrician to volunteer at the Repair Co Op one day a month.

For more information, go to www.asingleleafsouthwest.com.au.