It may shock and surprise you to know that disposable coffee cups cannot be recycled in your yellow-lidded bin! Most people have no idea about this. In Australia, we throw out over a billion coffee cups every single year! That means that there are more coffee cups thrown out each year than there are Australians! Over a billion a year, that is enough cups to go around the earth two and a half times. That’s 50 thousand every half an hour. 11,000 tonnes of these cups end up in  landfill every single year. Even if you place them in the recycle bin they will get sent to landfill.  Disposable coffee cups are also horrible to the forests of the world. Imagine all the trees that are used to make these cups. So are compostable coffee cups the solution? These compostable cups cannot compost in landfill. As you can see coffee cups are a problem.

To help put a stop to this 7-Eleven have teamed up with Simply Cups and are offering Australia's first ever coffee cup recycling program! They have set up over 200 recycling drop off locations at 7-Elevens, but not only for coffee cups also for slurpee cups as well! The reason these cups can't go into your recycling bin is because they have a lining of plastic in them so they are waterproof. But with this new recycling program, they separate the cardboard and the plastic. Both materials get recycled. 

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Enviro Warrior

Mangroves. They are the most misunderstood habitat. Most people believe they are stinky and infested with biting bugs like mosquitoes. But the truth is that Mangroves are extremely important and are essential for a healthy planet. Mangroves are incredible places teeming with wildlife. Here are four reasons why you should care about Mangroves.

They Help Fight Climate Change

Climate change is a huge problem. "Rainforest's are the lungs of the earth" people often say. Yes, they do soak up carbon emissions like a sponge soaks up water. But did you know that Mangroves soak up more carbon emissions than all the world's rainforest? Mangroves are like an army battling climate change and most of us don't even know it.

Osprey, Brahminy Kite, Mud Crabs, Bockadam, Fiddler Crabs, Semaphore Crabs and over in South East Asia Mangrove forests provide habitat for the endangered Proboscis Monkey. As you can see Mangrove habitats are essential for so many species to survive and thrive. When we remove Mangroves we remove their home.
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They Act As A Nursey For Baby Fish

Our addiction to plastic is coming back to bite us. It no longer just affects wildlife and the environment. It also affects us now too. New research from the State University of New York (SUNY) has found that a large percentage of bottled water being sold to the public contains micro plastics! 93 percent of water they examined had micro plastic in them. The water bottles were from all around the world and from all different brands. 

Many people believe that bottled water is cleaner than tap water but as you can see this is not the case. Just drink from the tap or fill up a reusable bottle of water for when you go out. You will be doing the environment and yourself a massive favour. It is also important that we ditch other single use plastic items like plastic straws, plates, knifes and forks. Instead of using these items we can use reusable ones. And for straws it is even simpler. Just don't use it, drink out of the cup. Every single item that is saved from landfill matters and makes a difference. Together we can stop the plastic problem and create a better future for the planet and us. 

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Enviro Warrior

Taking your rubbish out to the bin happens daily for most people or even a couple times a day. Then you put your bin on the kerb so the garbage truck can collect your waste. Now its out of site and out of mind. This is what people like. Now they think that the rubbish is no longer their problem. But it is.

Every single piece of plastic ever created still exists. It never goes away. A straw that we will use for five minutes will still be around even when you are dead. There is no such thing as "throw away" because it won't go away! 

Plastic never biodegrades. Even so called biodegradable plastics. The truth is that this "biodegradable" plastic does something very diffrent. It breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. But these tiny pieces can often be more deadly then a larger piece of plastic.

So what can we do to help stop the plastic crisis? A very simple action that will make a lot of difference is say no to single use plastics like plastic straws, bags, cutlery and plates. Instead of using these plastic items use reusable ones instead. Or with straws just don't use them. Just drink out of the cup. It's not that difficult. You may think does one straw really make a difference? It does. 

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Enviro Warrior

Today I attended Clean up Australia Day at Currumbin Creek hosted by Gecko. Gecko does a fantastic job at helping to conserve the Gold Coast's environment. We found all kinds of things. The most common item was cigarette butts and filters (as expected). But we also got 14 dumped tyres, a shopping trolley, shattered glass, straws, plastic bottles, cans, plastic bags, chip packets, and much much more. Most of the litter were small items (expect for the trolley and tyres of course). Today the Gold Coast had 140 registered clean up sites. Clean Up Austraila Day is a great way for you to help your local area and I encourage you to take part next year.

What did you do for Clean Up Australia day and what did you find. I would love to hear all about it.

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Enviro Warrior

Clean Up Australia Day is one of the nation's best known environmental events and for good reason. In the first 23 years of their event they collected 275000 tonnes of rubbish and in 2011 16500 tonnes of rubbish were collected. In the past 20 years Australians have volunteered over 24 million hours in this event. Clean Up Australia Day was started in 1989 by Ian Kiernan who wanted to reduce the amount of plastic in Sydney Harbour. Now thousands of Australians are joining in on this day and are cleaning up our country. I encourage you to be part of this very important event on this Sunday the 4th of March. You can join a clean up site by clicking here. Or you could make your own clean up site by clicking here. 

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​Enviro Warrior