'Garbologist' Belinda Chellingworth has so little waste she's ditched her landfill bin. Here's how

Belinda Chellingworth didn't set out to be a professional "garbologist".

It all started back in the early 2000s, when she was a uni student working in a supermarket deli.

"At the end of the night, we would throw away all the barbecue chickens. That was my very first real interaction with the world of waste," Bel says.

"I also worked in a pub and I would see all the paper from the gambling sheets ... get printed every day and then get chucked out too."

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So she started to take little initiatives. Though the leftover chickens couldn't go home with her, she'd rescue the used gambling sheets and repurpose them as notepaper.

Fast-forward to today and she's been without a red-top landfill bin since 2017. Bel ditched it in favour of a small Tupperware container that she fills about once a fortnight.

So how did she get here, and what can Bel teach us mere mortals about cutting down on our waste?

For someone who throws out around a kilo of waste to landfill every quarter, you might expect Bel to be pretty strict, like recycling's version of an army drill sergeant.

So it's a relief to hear that her first bit of advice is to start small.

"I used to say, just pick three things [to focus on cutting out], and now I'm like, just pick one.

"Just pick one thing so that you can get the change integrated and done and feel good about it."

By picking one thing to cut out or cut down on, and enjoying that small success, it's easier to ingrain the habit before adding the next thing.

The more something becomes a habit, the less it feels like a chore.

"I feel like it's an addiction. You get one thing, you knock it off, then get onto the next one.

"The good thing is, you can see it in your own bin, once you start knocking things off, you get that very real feedback."

So what was her first "one thing"?

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Like many of us, she started with plastic bags.

But she says in the early days, she was making some mistakes despite her good intentions.

"As an example, when I went to the supermarket I would buy a reusable bag every time I went, not understanding the life cycle impacts.

"Now? I'd kick my groceries down the road before I'd buy another bag."

Estimates vary, but one life cycle analysis found it took around 11 uses for one of the supermarket reusable bags to break even with a single-use plastic bag in terms of CO2 emissions.

For a cotton bag, when you factor in emissions and water, that balloons to more than 100 times.

Even today, Bel says her waste regime isn't perfect and things don't always go to plan.

"I just think it's so important to go, you know what? Sometimes you're going to mess up. It won't go to plan. You won't get it done."

She says there are a few key tips to make things easier on yourself:

Having a small worm farm helps her process some of her own food waste.

"What got me over the line in terms of getting rid of the red landfill bin was having a worm farm in my backyard, and also having access to a council food and organic waste service, as the worm farm can't handle everything."

But that's not something available to everyone. So again, cut yourself some slack.

What little (or big) things do you do to help cut down on the amount of waste going to landfill? Tell us

So what is this low-hanging fruit you say?

Well, that's different for everyone, and you should tailor your plan according to what works best for you.

But for Bel, the easiest things she replaced were:

These days, Bel runs her own consultancy, advising businesses on how they can cut down on waste and emissions.

She's also published an audit of her own waste footprint, which includes the waste from her business.

She stresses that access to different services and living arrangements means there are no blanket rules for people, but these are some ideas and resources that can help people reduce their waste.

Most of all Bel says it's about figuring out what works for you.

And it's also about recognising that we're working within a pretty difficult system. A system which also needs to make changes if we're really going to get on top of our waste problems.