By Chloe Henry
Berwick resident Emma Tonkin is on a mission to encourage others to join her sustainability journey.
Having participated in projects with the City of Casey Sustainability and Waste team, her eco-conscious efforts have not gone unnoticed.
The council’s waste team reached out to Emma in 2021 to work with them on their New Year’s resolutions and Recycle Right Campaign, something Emma said she was excited about.
“We worked together to develop a video that would be promoted and shared as an ad on Instagram,” she said.
“The aim of this campaign was to encourage Casey residents to use their Recycling and Waste Guide to learn what can be accepted by their curb-side recycling and food and garden waste bins.”
Emma also attended the 2022 Green Living Festival, run by the Sustainability and Waste team, and helped promote and document the event.
After taking philosophy as a subject in high school, she was encouraged to look at alternative perspectives when it comes to ethics and minimalism.
This is when her sustainability journey began.
“These ideas really made me consider what allows us to lead a good life, and how our choices not only impact ourselves, but the environment around us,” she said.
“I also spent three years after finishing high school working in a local kindergarten and I felt quite passionate about instilling sustainable values in the children I cared for.”
Emma began sharing her sustainability efforts on Instagram during the 2020 lockdowns and has received support from family and strangers alike.
“I have built a wonderful community of a few thousand people who are wanting to make conscious choices to better our world,” she said.
“It has been great connecting with others who care just as much about the planet, and I have learnt so much.”
However, after recently expanding onto TikTok, she has become the target of online hate for her lifestyle.
“I wanted to broaden my audience, and so far, I have had some really interesting conversations – however, I have found that I am more vulnerable to trolls and negative comments about my lifestyle choices, but that’s expected I guess,” she said.
Currently studying a Bachelor of Environment and Society at RMIT University, Emma wants more people to consider swapping to a sustainable lifestyle.
“The biggest thing I have learnt so far is that being more eco-conscious does not mean purging all of your things and replacing them with environmentally-friendly products,” she said.
“Start from where you are comfortable and do what you can moving forward to replace your habits with ones that are more sustainable.”
Having worked with the City of Casey in the past, Emma has found the shire really struggles when it comes to recycling bin contamination.
According to information collected by the Sustainability and Waste team from Cleanaway Waste Management, only 55 per cent of items collected in Casey’s recycle bins are being recycled.
This is due to residents putting the wrong items in recycling, or not cleaning and drying items properly before disposing of them.
“Residents have a real opportunity to make a difference if they take the time to learn what is accepted by our curb-side recycling, and make sure that the items that they do put in their blue bin are clean, dry, and free from all food scraps,” Emma said.
Emma’s sustainability journey can be followed at @ecoconscious_emma on Instagram and TikTok.
