Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:12 — 48.9MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More
The Sustainable Hour no. 606 | Transcript | Podcast notes
Waste is easy to see when it is overflowing from a bin. It becomes harder to see when it is hidden inside supply chains, data centres, discarded electronics and the endless churn of fast fashion.
In The Sustainable Hour no. 606, we explore both sides of the waste story with Kirsty Bishop-Fox from Zero Waste Victoria, who returns to preview the ninth annual Zero Waste Festival in Melbourne.
The festival is increasingly about much more than recycling. It asks a bigger question: how can we redesign everyday life so that we use less, repair more, throw away less and think more carefully about where the things around us come from – and where they go when we have finished with them?
This year, that question extends all the way into the rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence and data centres.
Zero Waste Festival 2026
On Saturday 12 September, Federation Square in Melbourne will become a hub of repair, reuse, sustainable fashion, food, practical ideas and conversations about the systems creating waste in the first place.
Festival director Kirsty Bishop-Fox tells us about a packed program running from midday, including:
• The inaugural ReWear Runway, where 28 finalists will showcase garments created from reclaimed, repaired, reused and repurposed materials. More than 80 people applied to participate.
• Costa Georgiadis launching his children’s book Costa’s Garden: Fruit and encouraging festival visitors to arrive in their “fruitiest” outfits.
• Repair cafés and mending sessions where people can bring broken electrical goods, bicycles and clothing and learn how to give them another life.
• Clothes, book and fabric swaps.
• A discussion called Rethinking Plastic: The Good, the Bad, and the Biodegradable, examining packaging, plastic pollution and emerging alternatives.
• Everyday Sustainability: Progress Over Perfection, including perspectives that are sometimes overlooked when sustainability is discussed – including disability and neurodiversity.
• A zero waste cooking session showing how forgotten ingredients at the bottom of the fridge can become dinner rather than landfill.
And everything served at the festival comes with another important principle: no disposable cups, plates or cutlery. Reusable crockery is washed on site.
 Rewear Runway See upcycled fashion take the stage at the ReWear Runway, where reclaimed materials become stylish new garments. Finalists will showcase their creations, share their sustainability stories, and compete for audience and expert-panel votes. Sat, 12 Sep, 5:30pm – 7:30pm The Edge, Fed Square |
The hidden footprint of AI
Perhaps the most unexpected part of this year’s Zero Waste Festival is a panel titled The Rise of Data Centres and the Hidden Footprint of AI.
Kirsty argues that the conversation about artificial intelligence needs to extend beyond electricity and water consumption. There are also the minerals, metals and equipment required to build the enormous computing infrastructure behind AI – and the question of what happens when rapidly evolving hardware becomes obsolete after only a few years.
Then there is another kind of pollution: information pollution. As generative AI becomes woven into advertising, search, communication and social media, Kirsty asks what happens to trust. How do we know why particular information reaches us? Who benefits from the systems shaping what we see? And how much artificial intelligence do we actually need?
The discussion is not framed as being against AI. Kirsty points to potentially life-saving uses in medicine and other fields. Her question is one worth asking about every technology: Is it serving society?
 Zero Waste Exhibitor Market Find sustainable, zero-waste essentials and learn about incredible innovations in reusing, repurposing, and recycling. There’ll be a range of eco-friendly exhibitors to explore. Sat, 12 Sep, 12pm – 6pm The Atrium, Fed Square |
. . .
From invasive weed to useful material
We hear from Kenyan engineer and UN Young Champion of the Earth Joseph Nguthiru, founder of HyaPak. His company is turning water hyacinth – one of the world’s most invasive aquatic plants – into biodegradable alternatives to plastic.
Water hyacinth can choke waterways, interfere with fishing and irrigation, harm aquatic ecosystems and provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes. HyaPak works with fishing communities to harvest the plant and turns its cellulose into useful materials. It is circular economy thinking in its simplest form: take something creating a problem and turn it into a resource.
We also hear from young Irish bioeconomy researcher Ayra Satheesh, who is experimenting with biodegradable materials designed to help tackle the growing problem of microplastics.
. . .
Western Australia at the crossroads
In his Global Outlook, Colin Mockett OAM begins in the United States, where a proposed Trump administration plan for the Colorado River has triggered fierce opposition over the prospect of major reductions to Nevada’s water allocation – with potentially serious consequences for Las Vegas.
Then he turns to Western Australia. WA sits at the centre of Australia’s ambitions to become a renewable energy superpower. It has enormous iron ore, lithium and other mineral resources, along with vast quantities of sun and wind.
Yet WA is also the only Australian state whose total greenhouse gas emissions have risen since 1990, and much of its mining, transport and agricultural economy remains heavily dependent on diesel.
Colin highlights a new report from independent MP Kate Chaney, Clean Power: Securing WA’s Future Prosperity, which argues that delaying the transition could leave Australia dependent on imported fuels while losing emerging clean industry markets to countries that moved earlier.
China’s dominance of batteries and electric vehicles provides the warning. China made strategic decisions decades ago. Other industrial economies hesitated and are now trying to catch up.
For Western Australia, Colin argues, the opportunity is enormous: green iron, batteries, renewable electricity and value-added manufacturing could become foundations of a new export economy.
The question is whether Australia moves while that opportunity is still ours to take.
. . .
Music in this Hour
Reshape Our World returns to The Sustainable Hour with its message of kindness, care, connection with nature and positive action. The song grew from our earlier conversation with sustainability professional Sam Smith and her reminder that “we are nature”.
Taste for Zero Waste brings a lighter soundtrack to the central theme of this week’s Hour – refusing, reusing, sharing, composting and discovering that living with less waste can actually make life richer.
We close with Starting From Today – a conversation across generations about the anxiety young people feel when looking at the world they are inheriting, and the power that comes from deciding to become part of the change.
As Kirsty reminds us, nobody needs to achieve perfection.
Repair something. Reuse something. Question something you were going to throw away. And perhaps question some of the things society has decided we apparently cannot live without. Small choices become habits. Habits become culture. And culture shapes the world around us.
Zero Waste Festival 2026
Saturday 12 September 2026
12pm–7:30pm
Fed Square, Melbourne
General festival entry is free.
Supporters can also become a Friend of the Festival. Sustainable Hour listeners can use the discount code WASTE FREE for 20 per cent off Friends of the Festival tickets.
 Costa Joins the Conversation You’ll find Costa on stage, exploring the festival and popping up throughout the event — from the Repair Café and exhibitors to the Riff Raff Radical Marching Band, Climate Choir and plenty more. Check out the full lineup of speakers. Free entry: Book now The Edge, Fed Square |
 Clothes Swap Refresh your wardrobe with The Clothing Exchange. Bring up to six quality clothes, shoes or accessories in great condition, then swap-shop for something new. Open to adults of all genders, ages and sizes. Check website for session times The Atrium, Fed Square |
“We always like to keep the focus though on what we can reduce and avoid in the first place. If we can’t avoid it then yes, looking at options that are more sustainable are incredibly important. But so many things are over packaged these days and it’s really problematic.”
~ Kirsty Bishop-Fox, Zero Waste Victoria
→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts or Spotify
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Next Repair Cafe Bellarine session
Save your broken items from landfill!
Repair Café Bellarine will hold its next session on Sunday 20th September, from 12.30 – 3.30 pm at Ocean Grove Neighbourhood House, 1 John Dory Drive, Ocean Grove.
Friendly volunteer repairers will be ready to fix items such as clothes, toys, furniture, electrical goods and electronic items.
For more information about future sessions or volunteering with Repair Café Bellarine go to www.repaircafebellarine.org.au
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TRANSCRIPT
of The Sustainable Hour no. 606
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General: (00:00)
Cooperation over chaos. We are all in this together.
Jingle: (00:14)
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson: (00:24)
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. As always, we’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to their elders – past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded. Always was and always will be First Nations land. And the reason we place so much importance on this is to acknowledge that they are the longest continually surviving culture on the planet. Nurturing their land and their communities was central to their way of living. And there’s so much in that ancient wisdom for us as we navigate the climate crisis.
Kenneth Keavey: (01:21) instagram video: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DV5VtLigCon/
This is mad. We’re the only species that will go out and spray toxic chemicals on our food to prevent other living creatures from eating it. And then go and eat it ourselves. That must be the definition of madness.
Mik Aidt:
Kenneth Kiwi from Green Earth’s organic. And yes, it’s madness. And yet, yesterday we saw thousands of farmers lining up with their tractors in front of Parliament protesting new laws that are going to reduce the amount of chemicals and fertilisers that farmers in the near future will be allowed to use on their land. Not in Australia, no, this time around in Denmark, where I happen to be at this moment. But there is a solution to all the madness and it begins with you, our listeners of The Sustainable Hour.
Today’s topic in The Sustainable Hour is zero waste and AI data centers. But first of all, as always, over to Colin Mockett OAM who’s got the kind of global outlook and perspective which our mainstream media so embarrassingly fails to provide you with.
Colin Mockett: (02:35)
Yes, thank you, Mik. And this week I’m going to begin not with the Nepal glacier mudslide, nor the fires, floods and heat waves that are worldwide, because they’re now regularly reported in the mainstream media. Although they are rarely linked to climate change, even though it is behind all of them.
So instead I’d like to begin in the United States where the Trump administration last week released yet another piece of environmental rollback legislation that’s called the Colorado River Plan. It lasted just three days before it was challenged in the courts by some surprisingly heavy opposition from Las Vegas. The surprise is because up until now, the casino owning moguls have been solidly behind Trump’s MAGA schemes.
But the new plan could see their state Nevada lose more than seventy percent of its already sparse Colorado River water allocation, and that would have a devastating effect on the city of Las Vegas. That’s according to the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, whose name is John Ensminger. Under the new Trump plan, Southern Nevada faced cuts to its allocated water in all future years, while Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming wouldn’t face any cuts at all.
Of the seven states that rely on the river for its water, Nevada already gets the smallest amount. Now the state’s water authorities are saying the long term impacts from the proposed cuts would be devastating, with Las Vegas bearing most of the pain.
Now these people are going to put quite a fight up against Donald Trump and up until now they’ve been backing him. Meanwhile, back home in Canberra, the federal government has spent years declaring its ambitions for Australia to become a renewable energy superpower, exporting what the world needs to decarbonise things such as green iron and critical minerals.
But remarkably little of that conversation has been about the state that will be central to achieving this goal. That’s WA Western Australia, which is looking more and more unwilling to cooperate with any federal plans. Western Australia is the world’s largest producer of iron ore and lithium, the second largest producer of alumina, and the world’s third largest liquefied natural gas exporter.
It’s also the only Australian state to have increased its total greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. This is largely on the back of the incredible growth in iron ore and LNG exports. Those emissions aren’t just nationally significant. The downstream emissions from burning WA’s gas and smelting its iron ore and alumina overseas are roughly 16 times the state’s domestic emissions. So although they’ve got high emissions in the state of Western Australia, they export 16 times that amount which is burned elsewhere in the world, which significantly is two point six percent of all global emissions. That’s exported from WA.
Crucially undermining WA’s exports and emissions problems is its reliance on diesel. The state’s mining, transport and agricultural sectors all rely almost entirely on diesel for their energy needs. Now the repeated closure of the Strait of Hormuz this year has been a warning about the risk of reliance on energy imports to WA, yet the Commonwealth’s response has been a fifteen billion dollar package that’s directed almost entirely at securing the supply of refined fuels and fertiliser. That’s instead of reducing our dependency through decarbonisation.
In July, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and WA’s Premier Roger Cook jointly announced a $4 million study into the construction of a new oil refinery. And you can guess where it is? It’s in WA. In the state.
It’s a move more suited to last century than today, when we need to be looking ahead to a clean energy future. All other Australian states are legislating and planning their own versions of a renewable future, as they should, but none have the potential of WA, where its iron ore would become green iron. Its lithium and rare earths could go into batteries and magnets for EVs and transport. WA has the land, the sun and the wind at the scale that a heavy industry requires, and the resources, infrastructure and expertise. If Australia is going to earn export income from decarbonisation, rather than merely talk about it, it has to begin in the West.
Now all of this information came from a new report that was released last week called ‘Clean Power: Securing WA’s future prosperity’. And surprisingly it wasn’t commissioned by Canberra or the WA government, but from a WA independent MP, Kate Chaney.
Her report warned of not acting decisively, and it used the example of the global car industry. It says that China sent an electric vehicle strategy two decades ago and put public money into battery manufacturing and refining lithium, cobalt, manganese and graphite. The motive was to reduce its dependence on imported oil that left China captive to foreign powers. And that investment has paid off.
China now makes about 90 per cent of the world’s battery components and more than three quarters of its electric vehicles. By comparison, Japan hesitated. The first mass market electric cars were Japanese, but its manufacturers kept backing combustion engines, hybrids and hydrogen, and treating electrification as a longer term project. The US and much of Europe did the same.
But they’re now all scrambling to get back on course after seeing China overtake them. Waiting didn’t reduce the cost of the transition, it meant paying more later and losing your market share. The report also noted that the Iran war has pushed Australian EV sales to record highs. It says Australian consumers are now clear about which future they’re backing.
And economics and energy security, not climate, are the motivators. And the report concludes that if WA’s renewable energy transition moves faster than the rest of the world, Australia would end up with cheap domestic electricity, an energy supply we control and lower emissions. But if WA moves slower than the other nations, Australia will be left with fossil fuel assets that nobody wants an economy still running on fuel bought in from somewhere else, and we would have sacrificed our position in new export markets.
Now that’s where Japan and Europe are now when it comes to EVs. It’s looking unlikely that they will catch up with China’s environmental transition. So the examples are there, we just need to heed them and take the right decisions now.
And that note of timely warning ends my roundup for the week.
Jingle: (11:10)
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
Tony: (11:18)
Our guest today is Kirsty Bishop-Fox. Kirsty’s always on around about this time of the year, so I’m tipping that the Zero Waste Festival is coming up. Kirsty’s all also very active in the Zero Waste movement in Victoria. One of the leading lights in that. So Kirsty, thank thanks for coming on. And what’s happening? What does it look like this year? What can we expect at this year’s festival?
Kirsty Bishop-Fox: (11:49)
What can we expect at this year’s festival? We have an incredible lineup of talks, clothes swaps, and our brand new rewear runway this year. Our reware runway is the first time we’ve had that at the festival, so it’s super exciting. It was a small idea that we had to, instead of just talking about fashion and talking about textiles, because there’s so much waste in this space.
We thought we’d put a call out to creatives, designers, students, home sewers, anyone who’s upcycled clothing that they wear. And we’ve had such an incredible response from that. We were hoping maybe 20-25 people might apply. We had over 80!
And so the incredible thing is our our some of our team have actually judged them. It was very tough for them to to judge, but we’ve got the the the top twenty eight which will be displaying their upcycled garments on the reware runway.
Colin: (12:46)
Well, that’s wonderful, Kirsty. How did you manage to reduce 80 contestants down to 28?
Kirsty: (12:53)
Well, our team they looked at I guess three key criteria. One of course very importantly was sustainability. So all the applicants had to put a story in about the garment that they’re making. What are they making it from? Where did the materials come from? And the the stories varied. Some were from op shops, some were from clothes that they had, some were kimonos that been passed down through the generations. And whatever it was that that story was considered, and then we looked at creativity. You know, what did they do with these things? You know, was it something standard or or however it was? and most importantly, wearability, functional. Is it a functional outfit? Not something we didn’t want things that were designed and looked amazing, but probably weren’t going to be worn elsewhere.
Colin: (13:39)
you make it sound very competitive. Is there a winner?
Kirsty: (13:43)
Yes, there is. There actually is. Yes. Well, we’ll find out. We’ll find out. the festival runs from 12 to 6pm and the ReWear Runway, which is part of a festival, sort of starts from 6pm and we’re we’ve got some industry judges who will be judging. To be really upfront with you, I believe everybody who actually took the time to enter are winners because it it’s really incredible the outfits they did.
The idea is to inspire people to go, you know what, we we can give them a second life and we can we can we can wear it, we can change it and we don’t have to throw things out.
Colin: (14:23)
Good. Look, now that you’ve baited the trap, can you take a picture of the winner, send it to Tony and we will publish it with next week’s Sustainable Hour.
Tony:
I’ll be there so I can take it. So cut out the middleman. Yeah. You might even win. I mean I don’t…
Kirsty: (14:36)
Absolutely. Even better.
Colin: (14:49)
I’m assuming that, Tony, you and I are of the same ilk and that I don’t mostly buy my clothes in op shop. I buy all my clothes in op shops. I’m addicted to op shops. Are you the same? Pretty much, yeah. It’d be a fashion icon in Geelong with that form. I’ve been that way for 40 years. It’s the… what’s it now called? It’s a circular economy, isn’t it? And I went into Kmart for the first time maybe a month ago for a particular reason. Somebody asked me to go in there for them. I was stunned because the last time I went into Kmart there was a cafeteria at the back of the place and and it was quite a nice sort of shop. Now it’s… what is it? Fast fashion. First full fashion sort of stuff. It’s horrible! Yeah and yet one of the things I’ve been noticing, you must notice too, Kirsty, virtually all op shops are full of Kmart stuff now. I kept wondering where the all the A what’s what’s the name of the company? Well whatever it is, it’s a Kmart brand. they don’t last Yeah, they don’t last long because they all wind up in op shops. What’s the most transition that you’ve seen on your runway this year?
Kirsty: (16:15)
Look, I can’t give you full insight into that because I haven’t done any of the judging. So I haven’t I haven’t seen I’ve I’ve had a look at a few things, but I don’t have quite the insight there. But I but I’ve seen a a few of the things that the designers have put up on social media. very excited they’ve got in. So people have done things with ties and made outfits out of ties. Ties are a really interesting one because ties are just not worn the way they once were.
Colin: (16:43)
Yep. I remember seeing a skirt – a really attractive young lady wearing a skirt made of men’s ties or with the the bottom Vs making a sort of a a a jagged bottom or hem to the skirt. And it was – I don’t know, strangely erotic because they’re all bloke stuff and there she was looking divine in it. So yes, you can use the ties in lots of different ways. Kirsty, are there any what what you call professional people that have have entered the competition, like people that that are making these clothes for a market?
Kirsty: (17:25)
Look, there there may be some. I don’t… To be really upfront with you, I haven’t gone through them. So I didn’t look at any of those those details. and when they were judged, that’s not something that we looked at either. Like we wanted to take out if they were a student, we wanted to take out all the background and just look at what was in in in front of in in front of us. I say us in the sense that I sort of have oversight to it.
But and I work with the criteria with the with the team and really what they do is they looked at that criteria. So there may be, there were definitely some who applied who are in that in that category, but we’re not quite sure sure where they fit. It’ll be something that we’ll find out on the on the day. And we’re really conscious that the judging is based on the the garment. But you know, I say judging, you know, they are being judged, it’s part of a competition.
But it’s also to inspire as well too. Like it’s really incredible and you know, I’d have been happy for people just to walk down, but the the team decided to to make it judging. but it’s really just I really hope that people who come to see this go, you know what? I would wear that. I would pay for that. I could make that, depending where they sit. It’s just putting a spotlight on on on textiles in a really different way. And we we do hope that because we do know that there are quite a number of students who applied and will be displaying their work as well too.
And one of the things that we want to really hope that students came in and we say students because these are emerging designers. So these are people who are being trained to go into the the place as well too. And we know that sometimes they do sustainability units or the whole whole design course might be about sustainability, but it doesn’t always translate the way they hope it will when they get out into the into the w workforce. So we’re going to put a spotlight on that to say, you know, it can and should and we want it to be done.
Colin: (19:13)
Great. Terrific. That that’s the fashion out of the way. What else is at the festival? but more to the nuts and bolts of the thing, when and where and at what times?
Kirsty: (19:26)
Saturday 12th of September, starting at 12PM, going through till 7:30. So it’s a very big day. Fed Square.
Colin: (19:34)
Where? Fed Square. Brilliant. And what you’ve mentioned talks and I know I’ve been there in the past. There’s been some really informative talks and discussions. What can we look forward to there this year?
Kirsty: (19:50)
Well, a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of serious deep dives. And by fun I mean we’re starting with our mutual friend, Costa Georgiadis, is joining us for the first time in person this year. Yes. Now he’s he’s been with us online in 2021 and he’s helped support us in other ways with little videos and things he’s he’s made for us. But we will be opening with his Melbourne book launch of his book, ‘Costa’s Garden: Fruit’.
So it’s a kids book but adults are welcome to come as well too because we all love Costa. we’re encouraging people to wear their fruitiest outfit and get into it with a bit of fun.
Colin: (20:27)
Yeah. Okay, Costa’s on first and then what can we expect of after him?
Kirsty: (20:33)
After him, we’ve got ‘Rethinking Plastic: the Good, the Bad, and the Biodegradable’. So I’ll be moderating that panel, and we’ll hear from Kip Hamilton from Australian Marine Conservation Society. And the work they do is incredibly interesting in the sense that they’ve had recently launched their Unpack It Awards. And these are the best and the worst of packaging. So she’ll be talking to us about that. And also some of the other things that are happening in terms of packaging reform. What is happening, what’s not happening, what should be happening.
Colin: (21:08)
And will their definition of biodegradable be looked at?
Kirsty: (21:14)
It’s one of those challenging things. It’s a word that means a whole lot of different things depending on the lens that you that you look through it. you know, biodegradable doesn’t necessarily mean compostable. It doesn’t even mean it’s petroleum free, unfortunately. It does mean that it breaks it breaks down. But we will have a researcher who’ll be talking about something slightly different in the sense that she’s working on packaging that is biodegradable, compostable, like really good packaging that also extends the life of food. So that’s looking it’s in early stages, it’s not out there yet.
But should we actually talking through some of the challenges and barriers in terms of having this concept that works on a small scale to going through the right testing. But what’s really significant about this is that it can extend the shelf life of some of our refrigerated food. So that’s really interesting as well too.
Tony: (22:07)
For sure. Is that person from one of the unis?
Kirsty:
Deakin.
Tony:
Well, a lot of interest in Deakin in Geelong, saying it’s the home the home university. And I know it’s got places in Melbourne as well, but yeah, no, they’ll they’re doing lots of great work. Well, all the unis are doing lots of great work as we’ve shown over the years. What what else can we expect?
Kirsty: (22:31)
Yeah, an interesting one. Everyday sustainability, progress over perfection. Now Costa will be moderating this panel discussion and we’ll be hearing from some really unexpected voices on on topics that don’t always get the attention that they deserve. we’re going to have Addy Gupta, who’s actually a disability advocate because he’s a blind adventurer, he calls himself. So he’s legally blind. He does have some side, it’s peripheral, that’s that’s problematic, but his challenge is he can’t always find the bin, let alone know the right bin. But he absolutely wants to do that that right thing. And sometimes the challenge is we find people in the disability space that have barriers to being as sustainable as they like. Sometimes it’s surprising what those barriers are for them. So that’ll be a really interesting one to unpack.
Tony: (23:23)
Yeah. That’s something I know that’s something that I’ve certainly just taken it for granted, I guess, because I’m abled myself. But yeah, it’s there’s so much that we take f for granted that that the impacts on people that have any sort of disability, you know, the problems they face in everyday life. So that’d be look forward to that one.
Kirsty: (23:47)
Yeah, that’s right. And we’ll be joined on that panel by Anna Matilda, known as the Urban Nana. She always brings the traditional way of doing things back. And sometimes she spoke at the festival before. She actually is a real advocate for those who are a bit neurodiverse and have different sorts of challenges with as as well too. But she’s also a worth of knowledge on traditional ways, you know, preserving, keeping, lasting. So she’s a great there.
Then we’ll be talking about decluttering in that same panel and repair cafe. So it’s everyday actions we can do with maybe a little twist to consider things that we don’t think of all the time.
Colin: (24:28)
Now the repair cafe does this mean you’re getting people coming up with broken things?
Kirsty: (24:33)
Absolutely. Yeah. So, Diana who’s…
Colin: (24:37)
Bring anything broken to Federation Square on the 12th of September.
Kirsty: (24:42)
Broken and possibly fixable. And I say that like electronics are fine, but if it’s been smashed to pieces, they’re not that amazing. Well, I say that you know, I just think of some of the broken things I’ve seen in my time. But yes, so the repair cafes will be there as well too. So anything that if it’s electrical, a bike, clothing, if there’s a hole in it you want to learn how to sew or darn, that that’ll be happening at Fed Square too.
Colin: (25:05)
It’s almost sort of taking things back in time. You’ve got the lady doing bottling, presumably fruits and and that’s preserving things in glass as opposed to plastic. You’ve got people who are looking for non fossil fuel plastic to preserve food, which if if it’s as you described, it wouldn’t be a fossil, it wouldn’t be a petroleum based plastic, it would be based on something else. I know that they make food. Some food food plastics are made from potatoes or the potato waste from people like McCain’s. they can use that as a base for making a a food plastic. The trouble the big trouble is of course, it’s all undercut because fossil fuel petroleum is so much cheaper than everything else.
Kirsty: (26:00)
Mm. And I think the biggest thing too, like it’s really important, like we can’t dismiss the need for the the packaging things, because obviously packaging things are our food, that’s the way it works, particularly when it extends the life of it. We always like to keep the focus though on what we can reduce and avoid in the first place. If we can’t avoid it then yes, looking at options that are more sustainable are incredibly important. But so many things are over packaged these days and it’s really problematic.
. . .
SONG (26:29)
‘Reshape Our World’
Verse 1:
She walks the site before the plans
Reads the ground, checks the scans
Food and fuel, fragile chains
Pull one thread, the whole thing shakes
Reshape our world – by being kind
Chorus:
Reshape our world – share what you can
Reshape our world – choosing care
Reshape our world – and positive action
We shape our world
Verse 2:
Design for people, not for cars
Leave space where people can meet and breathe
Where a stranger turns to a friend
Where the broken starts to mend
Bridge:
Balancing the books and the land
Building more but with less in hand
Not every one can hold the strain
There’s give and take, there’s loss and gain
We’ve forgotten the ways we once knew
Our soil is dying, the waters rise
Every day matters, the pressure climbs
It takes many more of us to change this path
Chorus:
I reshape my world – connecting with nature – by respecting the land
She reshapes her world – in service to life
He reshapes his world – with trust in the good
We reshape our world!
Verse 3:
We’re moving now
Thread by thread
House by house
This is who we are
Finding joy, finding pride
Discovering how
we shape our world
Reshape our world
Reshape our world
[Sam Smith: We are, actually, we are nature]
Chorus:
I reshape my world – connecting with nature – by respecting the land
She reshapes her world – in service to life
He reshapes his world – with trust in the good
We reshape our world!
[Sam Smith: What I would like to sort of say to people is: be brave! Like, don’t give up now. The harder it looks, the more we have to rally and look after each other.]
Reshape our world
We shape our world
Reshape our world
Reshape our world
. . .
Joseph Nguthiru: (29:57)
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXMOYPCjAZJ/
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the future of packaging. We found a way of making products that look like plastics, feel like plastics, and even perform just like plastics, but they decompose at the end of their lifetime. My name is Joseph Nguthiru, and I am the UN Young Champion of the Earth. We produce this out-of-water hyacinth, the world’s most invasive aquatic weed. It’s a weed that grows on top of lakes and waterways in more than 70 countries around the world, mostly in the global south. It blocks fishing, navigation, irrigation, kills fish, and is even a breeding ground for mosquitoes that then cause malaria to the local communities. It reproduces incredibly fast every six to twelve days, and that’s why it’s so hard to manage. I found out that by extracting the cellulose out of the plant, we can make a product that is just as flexible, durable, and performing just like plastics. At my startup, HyaPak, we now work together with these affected fishing communities to harvest the water hyacinth for us and dry it. And by doing that, they earn money. So far creating over 45 green jobs for them. Just as you would break up from a toxic relationship. Let’s break up from a toxic relationship with plastics. It is time to let single-use plastics remain single.
Tony: (31:25)
Kirsty, people want to find out, like, you’ve been mentioning that some of the talks that that are going to happen. Is there a program that’s like on your website or somewhere that th they can go to?
Kirsty: (31:39)
If you search Zero Waste Festival, you’ll either find the website or Humanitics. get your tickets from Humanitics and you’ll have all of the everything there as well too. But I do want to do a bit of a twist to our program because we’ve actually got something that we’re covering which is a little bit different to what we’ve spoken about. It’s big, it’s potent, it’s current, and it’s on many people’s minds. The rise of data centres and the hidden footprint of AI.
Colin: (32:07)
Mm. Come on.
Kirsty: (32:09)
Now it’s something we’re absolutely hearing a lot about and rightly so. we’re largely hearing about the water and the energy and we’ll be covering those to a degree as well too. But what’s not being spoken about and you touched on a little bit this earlier in in the start is the rare minerals that are being used to create the you know the equipment that goes in there and then what happens when the equipment becomes obsolete because the turnover in these data centers can be two to five years.
And I would say five has been incredibly optimistic. It’s only a few years. And in Australia, I don’t know what the data is. I can’t find it. But I do know that we are looking at the challenges with recycling solar panels. So if that’s the challenge there, how are we going to manage the obsolescence of the equipment in these data centres? And that’s not something that’s been considered as well to… We’re actually looking at it from that perspective, but also from an ethical perspective. We’ve got a couple of researchers. One of those researchers is, of course, in in commute computer science and that type of area. But one of the researchers is actually got a legal background. So should we talk about yes. Because while there’s the the equipment which is really important, there’s the AI and that is distorting so many messages, not just climate.
Colin: (33:36)
So how are you tackling the subject physically? Have you got a panel that’ll be on stage at the
Kirsty: (33:41)
Yes, absolutely. We’ve got Professor Jeannie Paterson, Bronwen Clark, who’s the CEO of the National Growth Areas Alliance, and she has an interesting perspective because she’s a community advocate. So she’s looking at where they’re placing these data centers. And then we’ll have Jason Sadowski who is an associate professor in the Department of Human-centered computing at Monash Uni. So that’ll be a really interesting panel. Which will be moderated by Doctor Dylan Bird, who’s a journalism lecturer at RMIT uni and he’s a broadcaster too.
Colin: (34:18)
The difficulty of course is that it’s too late to stop anything now. They’re already building the things, aren’t they? And if you they’ll be operating five years and they’ll be looking for some they’ll be looking for something different. Might not be bigger, but certainly will be different.
Kirsty: (34:36)
Yeah. And the thing with these data centers is is data centers, they’re not new, they’ve been around for a long time and we need to be a little bit, you know, we’ve got to look at data centers completely in the sense that if we’re listening to, like, if we’re using the internet, if we have an email, if we have a bank account, that’s all connected to a data center. But of course the incredible increases come for a number of reasons and AI is a very big one of them. And what we really want people to start looking at is AI has some really positive and important attributes to society. It’s being used in medicine to help with diagnoses. And that’s something that we can’t dismiss and we absolutely want to have. It’s life-saving.
But on the other hand, it’s not all life saving and some of it’s really driven, I would say, through corporations who aren’t being completely transparent about their motives and intention with using it. And they’re the bigger questions that we need to be asking why and what is going to happen to that. Because while it might serve a company well, is it serving us as a society well?
Tony: (35:46)
And and whether they should expect to be given like the the big, huge users of energy and whether they should expect to be able to get that, to get access to the energy at the expense of someone else or, yeah, it’ll be good to hear that discussion, just to shine those extra lumens on something that has snuck up on us.
Kirsty: (36:12)
Yeah.
Colin: (36:12)
Really though, Tony, has it? It it’s just a different name. We called it at the beginning of this century, we called them supercomputers. They could crunch numbers much, much higher than other ones. Then suddenly they started calling them data centers and that was just simply bigger computers that are able to to work their computations out. Yeah, as an issue I think it snuck up on us.
Kirsty: (36:41)
And I do think we need to look at it in the sense that when we look at the data centers for AI, it’s like yes you can pay to use AI, but there are many free ways that anyone can use AI. Why is that free and why is AI losing the money right now?
Well, there’s a very big motive and that motive, there’s many of them, but one of the biggest ones is to advertise. So if the AIs are being used as advertising, are we even gonna be able to trust anything at all? Like the youth of today I’ve had conversations with youth and it’s very interesting ’cause they’re very like, what do we believe? We don’t know who or what we can believe. And with with these you know, these generative models, it’s only adding and compacting to that. So it’s a really big issue. Waste and environment is central to it, but it’s got so many prongs to it that y you know, they used to call it they still do. You know, we used to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s in the cloud. Well, the cloud is actually, you know
So it’s one of those things, like the horses bolted and it’s out there, but it’s how much do we need and where do we draw draw the line? And you know, I was in an interesting conversation just on the weekend where they were saying it’s like, you know, I use AI and I was doing it to make my emails better but then I looked at emails I wrote a few years ago and they were actually okay.
Colin: (38:03)
Yeah, yep. The the real thing that worries me is the conjunction of AI with algorithms because what what AI is doing is looking at everything you talk about or re or send emails about or read about and then say, this lady’s interested in recycling.
So therefore we will send lots of recycling stuff in her direction and cut out anything that isn’t recycling. And you’re gonna wind up with everybody having their own little monoculture around them simply because of what they’ve done in the past. And it might just have been that they were they’d been to your festival. You know.
Kirsty: (38:49)
In case I think it’s very good. However, the algorithm doesn’t always feed me what I want to see. I’ve seen something, I’ve watched something, I’ve gone, I don’t want to see that anymore and then I’m seeing all of this stuff that I don’t want to be seeing.
Colin: (39:04)
Yep. Look, I had a problem with my cooker a week ago or a couple of weeks ago now. And so I look for solutions in the internet by saying, you know, how could it be fixed and blah blah blah. Now every single thing that I go to it’s trying to sell me a different cooker. They there are cookers everywhere. Yeah.
And I to the extent where I think I’ve had enough of this, I’ll just close the thing down and and the the problem’s about solve. but it the I’m still inundated with cookers. And it’s it’s it’s going to it it’s not going to stop there, it’s going to get worse. It’s one thing that we know with the advent of AI and algorithms, it can only get worse. I’m down there somewhere up in the cloud. The AI has worked out that I’m a cooker guy.
. . .
SONG (40:04)
‘Taste for Zero Waste’
Verse 1:
Bring your keepcup, take a stand
Say no to plastic, give the planet a hand!
Refuse, reuse, let’s compost too
One small change, yeah, that’s how we do!
Pre-Chorus:
Feel the joy, feel the grace
Living light, no money to waste!
Join the wave, it’s taking place
Lots of things happening in this space!
Chorus:
Zero waste, gives you a better taste
Of life in a nutshell, when we do it well!
Less in the bin, more in your soul
Step by step, we’re in control!
Verse 2:
Got my plate, and my coffee cup
No single-use, I level up!
Farmers’ markets, bulk-buy store
Supporting local. And waste? No more!
Bridge:
Picnics with Costa, reusing with style
Swap and share — it’s all worthwhile!
Wash those dishes, ditch the trash
Sustainable living, making a splash!
[Short instrumental intermezzo]
Final Chorus:
Zero waste, gives you a better taste
Of life in a nutshell, when we do it well!
Less in the bin, more in your soul
Step by step, we’re in control!
Outro:
One small step. And then one more
Reuse and refuse, like never before
. . .
Ayra Satheesh: (42:29)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BoWdVoz-njs
My name is Ayra Satheesh and I’m a young bioeconomy researcher from Ireland. I built EcoBridge, a biodegradable plastic that not only degrades by itself, but releases an enzyme into the environment to degrade existing microplastics. I was inspired by the growing problem of plastic pollution and wanted to find a way to make biodegradable materials even more useful by degrading existing microplastics. My next approach is to genetically modify the enzyme and produce it a larger scale by the use of patch culture, making it both cost-friendly and more effective. I think EcoBridge deserved to win because it provides a sustainable and practical solution to a big global problem which is plastic pollution.
Colin: (43:12)
Now that’s all good, Kirsty, but festivals are all about food. What sort of food will people enjoy at your festival on the 12th of September at Federation Square?
Kirsty: (43:25)
Well, whatever the food they will enjoy, I can tell you it’s gonna be zero waste. All the food, all the coffee, all the drinks. we have green my plate. So you’ll be able to have you’ll be able to have reusables there. We actually have them washed on site, so which is a really great way to reduce waste. It’s something that we think about and put a lot of energy into doing where where we are.
Colin: (43:49)
Are you asking people to come with their keepcups?
Kirsty: (43:51)
They can bring their keepcups, we always encourage that, but if they forget their keepcup then we’ve actually got reusable cups that will be washed on site.
Colin: (43:58)
Right. So people can come and get a cup of coffee from you and they’ll have a cup that they can reuse elsewhere.
Kirsty: (44:06)
Well, they we can reuse it at the festivals. They get act we bring bring my plate, come in, and they actually have all they provide all the cups and all the crockery and everything that we need. So that way we can do away with the takeaway packaging while you’re at the festival.
Colin: (44:20)
Right. Now you haven’t got those wooden forks, have you?
Kirsty: (44:24)
Yeah. Absolutely not. No, we have only reusables.
Colin: (44:27)
Yeah. And you haven’t got plastic forks either.
Kirsty: (44:33)
There’s nothing disposable.
Colin: (44:35)
Right. What are you doing with all the excess food?
Kirsty: (44:39)
The excess food. Well, I guess there’s there’s a a couple of aspec as aspects here. So we’ve got like O My Donor, that’s one of the food vendors, and they cater to the numbers that are there and being a food van truck, they actually look at being as sustainable as they can. So they actually order in that amount and just continue on. So there’s really little waste at the festival.
Colin: (44:59)
So if you have any food over because it’s raining on the day, who gets it?
Kirsty: (45:05)
Well what’ll happen is being the food trucks they actually
Colin: (45:08)
They take it.
Kirsty: (45:09)
Yeah, yeah. So we don’t we don’t have that there. So it’s up to people if they get food or not. but speaking of food, we do have a panel on food. Like we’re having a zero waste cooking food style. So affectionately we’ve got Lily Jayang, who’s an an amazing chef from it’s called Feed One Feed All. And they’re a charity that actually make many meals for people who need support with the meals. And probably about half of the food that they get actually is rescue food.
So they don’t know what they’re going to be cooking from week to week. The menu’s always changing. But she’s going to come in and give us some ideas. So if we’re looking in the bottom of our fridge and going, How can I have dinner? She’s incredible at taking three ingredients and turning them into something amazing.
Colin: (45:55)
Brilliant. Okay, so we’ve covered fashions, we’ve covered Costa, who is a fashion icon. We’ve covered food. What haven’t we covered that you can find at your festival? And what are you particularly looking forward to on our roundup because we’re coming towards the end now.
Kirsty: (46:16)
Can I talk about our Friends of the Festival where it’s our Friends of the Festival, look, the festival being put on this year… Hang on, let me take it back. We went ahead with the festival this year despite not having the grant funding that we usually do. It was a massive risk for us to put it on, but we believed it’s incredibly important, too important for us not to.
We couldn’t do this event without the massive team of volunteers behind us, but we’ve still got costs to put it on. So while we do have some sponsorship which is amazing, the Friends of the Festival is a way that the community can support our our festival with some bonuses. So they’ll actually get front row seating, they’ll get opportunities to meet and greet the speakers and have some photos taken with them, they’ll have opportunities to have some recycling tours after the after the festival.
And bragging rights for being a friend a festival friend. So we’re actually it’s it’s been really interesting the uptake of that. those who come to the festival itself between 12 and 6pm they’ll have access to all four speaking panels and they’ll be able to do that as well too. And for the ReWear Runway, which is a separate ticketing system, they’ll have pre-event drinks and nibbles before the ReWear Runway starts. So it’s a hundred dollars for these tickets and I’m actually able to offer your listeners a discount.
I’ll put a code in the link. And if they want to support the festival that would be amazing.
Colin: (47:50)
And so what discount are you offering for Sustainable Hour friends? So eighty bucks gets you a hundred dollar Friends of Festival and you get all of those benefits that you’ve just un unwound for it.
Kirsty: (47:56)
20 per cent discount. That’s right. As well as bragging rights. Bragging rights as being a Friend of the Festival supporter.
Colin: (48:12)
Great. Now, how do they go about it? On your website I’m assuming? Yeah. And how do you find the website?
Kirsty: (48:20)
Just if you search Zero Waste Festival, you’ll find the website. You’ll either get to the website or you’ll get to Humanitix. Actually you know what? How about we just use the code WASTE FREE? We’ll do that ’cause it’s memorable.
Colin: (48:33)
Yep. Wastefree.
Kirsty: (48:35)
Use the code WASTE FREE for 20 per cent off the Friends of the Festival tickets.
Colin: (48:41)
Look, that’s wonderful. How many festivals have you done now? Good on you. Well we are supporting you all the way and we’ve got some incredibly well healed friends. So I’m I’m hopeful that you’re gonna be getting one or two extra from this, just from this broadcast.
Kirsty: (48:45)
Nine. This is the ninth. That’d be amazing.
Colin: (49:06)
Now we like, as you know, to finish off our Sustainable Hours with a ‘Be’. A ‘Be’-sentence. A cliche with started with ‘Be’. It started with ‘Be the difference’ and then we looked for a difference on that. And so we wound up with ‘Be aware’, ‘be alert’ and ‘be a…’ – what would you say would be a good one that would come on side with your festival with zero waste?
Kirsty: (49:33)
I’m gonna say ‘Be a friend of the festival supporter’. Can I say that?
Colin: (49:36)
Go. Yeah. Yeah, of course you can. That’s an expression for all of us.
Kirsty: (49:43)
The support and have bragging rights?
Tony: (49:46)
Yeah. It’s a great event. It really is each year, so thank looking forward to it.
SONG (49:59)
‘Starting From Today’
Verse 1:
Looking at your face right now
As you scroll through the headlines
I see the worry in your eyes
About the world we leave behind
And I know you’re wondering
If anyone will make it right
But baby, let me tell you something
That keeps me up at night
There’s still time to change the way
Things are going day by day
And when you feel like giving up
Remember what I say
Chorus:
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Verse 2:
Dad, I’ve seen the videos
Of how things used to be
Clear skies and clean waters
It’s hard to believe
But I’m not just sitting here
Waiting for a miracle
Got my friends beside me now
We’re making it possible
Every small step counts, they say
Little changes pave the way
When it seems too much to bear
Listen close, I swear
Chorus:
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Bridge:
We rise together
Hand in hand we’ll find a way
We rise together
Every choice we make today
Shapes tomorrow’s way
Chorus:
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Outro:
We rise together
Starting from today
. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CALENDARS
Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.
PETITIONS AND OPEN LETTERS
you could add your name to
→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE SUSTAINABLE HOUR ON AIR
LIVE STREAMING
on Wednesdays
The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time): 94.7 FM.
→ To listen to the program on your computer or phone, go to www.947thepulse.com where you then click on ‘Listen’ on the top right of the page.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ARCHIVE
Over 600 hours of sustainable podcast episodes
Listen to all of The Sustainable Hour radio shows as well as our special Regenerative Hours, Climate Revolution and Force of Life episodes in full length.
→ Archive on climatesafety.info – with additional links
→ Archive on podcasts.apple.com – phone friendly archive
NEWSLETTER
Receive our podcast newsletter in your mailbox
We send a newsletter out approximately four to six times a year. Email address and surname is mandatory – all other fields are optional. You can unsubscribe at any time.
FOLLOW, INTERACT AND SHARE
The Sustainable Hour in social media
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheSustainableHour → Front covers
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/TheSustainableHour
• Blue Sky: www.bsky.app/profile/thesustainablehour.bsky.social
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/SustainableHour
(NB: we stopped using X/Twitter after it was hijacked-acquired by climate deniers)
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/thesustainablehour
Great if you’ll share the news about this podcast episode on your social media platforms!
