MelanieSaunders

For you, pets might be a valued part of your family, so you want to make sure they’re treated right. For example, the RSPCA noted that 19% of dog owners take man’s best friend with them on holiday, so it’s important to plan their journey ahead of time. In Sydney, there are various rules that explore the transportation and safety of pets on public transport. These refer purely to regular pets, as all guidance/assistance animals are accepted on public transport, provided you have an Assistance Animal Permit from the Transport Concessions Office. No pets are allowed on Sydney Metro/Train or coach services, or at any of their stations. They are, however, available on bus, ferry and light rail services. For all services, you need to gain permission from either the driver or the crew. If allowed, the pet must be restrained in a suitable box or container, not be placed on any seats, and must be kept clean and calm. The driver has final say on the admittance of the animal. Other states such as Victoria and South Australia are slightly more lenient with train travel, provided the animal is fitted with a muzzle or contained. Traveling by car can be an entirely different story, as everyone’s car houses pets in different ways. There are still some important rules to cover, however, to ensure that your pets enjoy the trip as much as you do. Before you leave you should keep the number for your vet and pet insurance handy, so they can be contacted in the event of an emergency. The animal should also be taken to the vet before the trip, so they can receive the necessary immunisations and treatments. Dogs are legally required to be restrained with a dog seat belt or harness, while cats should be placed in a cat carrier. Air-con should be kept on to ensure your pet is kept cool and comfortable, or at least allow for adequate ventilation if this is not possible. It’s a good idea to prepare some treats, toys and bottles of water for your pet while on your trip, in addition to having your leash handy if they need to go for a walk. Having a pooper-scooper and/or plastic bag ready to pick up any droppings is also recommended. Plan ahead to allow for regular breaks and rest stops – at least every two hours or so - so that both you and your pet can get out and stretch. Make sure they are fitted with updated ID tags or are microchipped, so you can be contacted if they are lost. Perhaps you can plan a stop ahead of time and allow your pet to let out some excitement. If you’re going through the city, find a fun area with Parkhound and you can rent out a one-time space for you to stretch your legs and have some fun with your pet. If you intend on taking your furry friend with you on a plane – for a domestic flight, for example – check with the airline to ensure what their policies for animals are. Some may allow you to keep the animal in the cabin, while others may only allow you to store your pet in the cargo in a carry case. As with all transportation, it’s important that you weigh up the pros and cons of any forms of travel so that you can keep your pets healthy and happy. Some pets may not take well to the movements and sounds of cars, trains and planes, so make sure to research what may be the best ways to transport your pet to your next destination.

For businesses that routinely find themselves working with chemicals or hazardous goods, it’s essential to do everything possible to minimise their risk. Of course, there’s an incredible risk when working with explosives, corrosive acids and poisons, though with the correct precautions and procedures, these risks dissipate almost entirely. If you’re having trouble educating your workforce or just looking for a few steps on how to minimise chemical risks, we have four essential steps for you below. There’s always a multi-step process when it comes to minimising risk, but it’s not too hard to remember, and we’ve taken a look into these below. Fortunately, a few somewhat simple changes can work wonders for the safety of your business, so making these won’t be very difficult at all. Let’s make your workplace as safe as can be, take a look at our tips below. 1. Identify and Understand This is the essential first step to reducing the risk of harm in the workplace. Nor yourself or an employee can effectively deal with a chemical, poison or explosive without first knowing what it is, what its risks are, and how to store it safely. With that in mind, it’s crucial to take a look at the Safety Data Sheet that has come with the substance and work out just what it is. If it should be stored in a compliant way, then invest in a Storemasta cabinet, and you’ll be checking off an essential requirement: safe storage. Once you’ve identified what a chemical is, and how it should be handled, you can then move on to assessing how best to deal with it. 2. Assessing Risk and Potential Harm As we now know the substance and its basic requirements for storage, we can then move on to understanding the risks it poses to the workplace. You’ll need to know whether the chemical is going to cause vapours to spread through the warehouse or workplace, or if it can catch fire under certain conditions, for example. We suggest undertaking a risk assessment of that specific hazardous good and learning about the potential risks it poses. In doing so, you’ll have an in-depth look at what the substance is capable of, and how to keep it from doing any harm. In the end, after assessments and some brief research, you should know exactly what the substance’s risk is, and how to mitigate it. 3. Work to Control Risk The first two steps in our list will have shown you just what a chemical is, how it should be handled, and what harm it can cause. With these points in mind, you should then develop a plan and educate staff on how to control risk when working with that specific chemical. A few tips we suggest are: - Adapting workplace tasks that could result in injury - Investing in personal protection equipment or PPE - Change workplace paths to keep staff away from an unsafe area. Without a doubt, prevention is the best medicine when it comes to reducing the risk of a hazardous chemical harming someone. It’s also a good idea to implement the following tips to reduce risk further: - Invest in correct ventilation for chemicals. - Install a Storemasta cabinet for storage. - Automate or enhance tasks that require chemical use. Adding these few tips is essential to relatively neutralising risk, regardless of how dangerous or hazardous a substance may be. 4. Maintain Safety The final step to minimising hazardous good's risk is to implement a few changes in the workplace that revolve around the hazards themselves. These could include permanently changing workplace tasks, implementing mandatory workplace safety meetings and developing a workplace-wide safety protocol. If you plan on maintaining the safety of your workplace, there's little chance that the hazards will again crop up, keeping everyone safe in the long term. It may also be a good idea to have a professional WHS risk assessment worker come to your workplace on a routine basis throughout the year to run a few tests and take a look at how things are going. These people will be able to spotlight potential risks and let you know what to do to reduce the chance of an injury.

These days, everyone worries about the environment and what we can do to lessen our environmental impact. It can be hard to be environmentally friendly all the time and do the right thing at every hour of the day, but there are a lot of things that we can do to have more of a positive impact on the environment. If we stop and think about where the things that we use each day come from, how they are made and how they are disposed of, we can see just how much our lives have an impact on the environment, and how important it is to be conscious of how our actions are affecting the world that we live in. Rent your clothing Keeping up with the latest fashion trends can be hard when you are trying to lessen your environmental impact. Buying items that are made of sustainable materials that can last for several years is a great way to combat the environmental issues that go with fast fashions, but it can be costly to buy these sorts of pieces. Renting your clothing instead of buying is another great way to have a positive impact on the environment through fashion, because it allows people to recycle clothing that others no longer want, by giving it them a new purpose. Clothing rental companies like The Volte are great for people that are looking to rent their clothing, because it allows customers to pick and choose from several designer items available, so you can be trendy and environmentally conscious. Start a compost heap If you want to do something about some of the scraps of fruit and vegetables that you are throwing away each day when you cook, you should start a compost heap in your garden. Starting a compost heap is easy, and it only requires a large bin or tub for you to put your waste into. You can put your clippings from the garden into the compost bin as well, so it too can be used again. The only things that you should not put in your compost bin are citrus and onion scraps because they do not break down easily like other natural foods, so try to leave them out of your compost bin. Having a compost heap is great for people that garden because you can use the broken down scraps and liquids to feed your plants, rather than letting them go into the garbage and ending up in landfill. Think about your transport If you are worried about your carbon footprint and want to make some changes to be more environmentally friendly, you might need to look at your current mode of transport. If you own a car that you drive by yourself regularly, you might want to consider walking or riding a bike instead, by you will not be creating any unnecessary emissions on your journey from A to B. Walking or cycling to work is also great for people who are looking to get fit, because you can fit some exercise into your day without changing your schedule too much. If you live far away from the place that you need to get to, you should consider using public transport instead of driving a car, because buses and trains are more environmentally friendly per person, compared to a car. Shop locally If you are concerned about how the things you buy each day are affecting the environment, you should start buying from local vendors to lower your impact. Shopping locally is not only great for the local economy, but it is great for the environment, too. Items that are bought locally do not need to be transported to get to the shop that you are buying them from, so the carbon emission created by locally sourced items would be much lower. Also, if you are buying local produce, you may find that it tastes better than foreign produce because it is fresher and has fewer chemicals added to it to keep it fresh. This means that you will reap the rewards yourself if you buy locally sourced food. Being environmentally friendly these days is not as hard as it used to be, now that we know how some of our actions can have a serious effect. Making a few changes here and there to your everyday life can significantly decrease your environmental impact, and a lot of the things you can do not require a lot of effort to make a difference. Starting with some small changes like turning the tap off when you brush your teeth is a great place to start because they are things that you can do easily. Then, you can move onto the bigger ones like walking to work instead of driving, which can have a big impact if a few people get on board. If all of us did this, we would see some big changes to the environment in no time at all.

What better way to bring out your creativity and care for the environment at the same time than by creating a backyard garden? The use of recycled items to embellish the backyard garden space helps to add some touch to the project. It also assists in highlighting your fun personality as you seek out new ways of using readily available materials to garden. As you continue looking for new ideas and new methods to spruce up your garden project, consider the projects listed below: Bring Out Your Old Boots and Fill Them with Flowers The old rain boots that you outgrew or a member of your family outgrew in the past year should not have to end up in a landfill or in your trash bag. Take a few pairs of old boots and use some scissors to make drain holes in their soles. Proceed to fill the boots using potting soil. You can then use these boots to plant your preferred seasonal blooms. The boots will look adorable when you line them up along the length of your entryway. Alternatively, you can also place them in your vegetable garden to help you add a touch of color. Use Artificial Grass to Create a Walking Path Gardening is a fun activity, but it can easily turn messy, especially when wet soil gets into your pristine looking shoes. Using recycled artificial grass will help you maintain that lush green look in the garden while getting rid of the mess that comes with gardening. Use the grass to come up with walkways between the sections present in your garden. Taking into account that this grass will never require watering, it means that you can now focus your attention to tending to your plants. Lawn maintenance should not interfere with your gardening activities. The good thing about the artificial grass is that you can place it with ease on your preferred location. Create a Raised Bed Garden Using Old Tractor Tires The good thing with home gardens is that you are at liberty to innovate as much as you would like. And as it is, old tires tend to easily clutter landfills as they take ages before they can start biodegrading. So why not keep the tires from the landfill by giving them an all-new purpose? By collecting a few old tires, you can easily create a raised bed garden while at the same time getting to extend the purpose of these rubber items. You can choose to stack up these tires to help you add interest. Or you can also paint them using whimsical colors as a way of brightening the space available in your backyard. Use Old Silverware as Your Plant Markers Old silverware can easily be put into use by decoupage to help transform them into suitable plant markers. All you need to do is to print a photo of each plant type present in your garden. Proceed to use the decoupage media to affix the printed photo to the back of your silverware. You could also label the silverware making sure to give each spoon a name of the plant you are growing. While at it, make sure that you have a place to store all your garden tools and supplies. An EasyShed for instance, helps you to store gardening essentials away from the elements. It also ensures that your tools are within easy reach whenever you need to tend to your plants. Turning the items in your trash bin into great gardening treasures is not complicated when you choose to adopt a new outlook to life. You do not have to look farther than your home for you to create the ideal backyard garden.

Nobody likes a litterbug. However, studies show that out of everyone across the country, people from Queensland and New South Wales are responsible for disposing of the most waste improperly. Because of this, the achievements of others around the country who are trying to dispose of their waste properly has been overshadowed. However, if we can teach people just how much their littering impacts the rest of the world, we may see some improvements sooner than we think. It can kill animals We’ve all seen the advertisements and posters about how disposing of our rubbish in the wrong places can kill animals. However, most of us don’t realise that even getting rid of something small like a gum wrapper or a bottle cap can have a big impact later on. And even though it can be hard to clean up on land, it can be even harder to keep the oceans clean, and plastic rubbish is the main form of litter floating in our oceans. It is estimated that about 88% of the ocean’s surface across the world is covered in plastic debris, with about 8 million metric tons of plastic being thrown into the ocean annually. These numbers will continue to grow if we don’t do something about it and the animals that live in the ocean will feel this impact the most because many animals will either ingest this rubbish by accident or get caught in it because it has no idea what it is. This also means that humans that consume marine animals that have plastic inside them will be impacted because the plastic can not be fully digested by any living creature. It pollutes the soil, water and air When you litter, some of the toxins in the products that you are throwing away can actually leach out into the ground and pollute the soil around it. Because soil is absorbent and it can take on a bit of any substance that you add to it, when you add things like plastic or rubbish that contain chemicals to it, the soil will absorb some of the toxins in the litter. Now you may be thinking that there is no way that this can affect you, but you have to remember that most of the things that you eat are grown and raised in soil. So this is another way that littering can directly impact your diet in a negative way. These toxins from plastics and litter that absorbs into the soil can also seep into the water from the ground so that even the water that we drink can be impacted. It costs the economy Littering is not just about the environmental impacts, there are terrible social impacts that littering has as well. For example, it has been noted that areas, where littering is more common, are places where people are most likely to litter, because they may subconsciously follow what other people are doing or have done before. It can also impact other attitudes in the area towards things like crime and graffiti because the atmosphere in these areas is different from those that are cleaner and well looked after. Because littering is such a big problem in city and suburban areas, local, state and federal governments have had to start allocating funds to combat the problem by paying for more people and organisations to clean up litter on the streets. If more people reduced their amount of waste they produce, reused items that can be reused and recycled things that can be made into something new, there would be a lot less rubbish on our streets that has to be disposed of. There are a number of ways that littering can impact our everyday lives. Littering can affect the water you drink, the food that you eat and the streets that you live on and it is something that can be easily fixed if all of us work together to do the right thing. If you are interested in limiting the litter in your area and making a positive change to help the environment, you should join a group in your local area that is focused on conservation and limiting the waste in your area. Littering is not a problem that can be solved quickly and easily, but every little bit counts, so doing what you can when you can, will make a big impact. Author Bio: Susie is a content manager at 1300 Rubbish, a rubbish removal company that can help you to dispose of any residential, commercial, construction or green waste that you want to get rid of in a responsible way. 1300 Rubbish is based in Australia and offers rubbish removal services to people across the country in all of the major towns and cities.

Every once in a while there comes the time to freshen up your garden and it is important to remove your green waste the responsible way. A common problem that arises is what to do with all that garden leftovers. If you are looking for Eco-friendly ways to get rid of your yard waste you are in luck because what follows is a comprehensive guide on how to dispose of your green waste without harming the environment. Read on and enjoy. Turn your waste into an eco-friendly fertilizer Much of your yard waste can be turned into compost that may be reused later as a fertilizer in your garden. Grass, veggie scraps and flower cuttings are ideal matter for this purpose. You will need a DIY composting bin or specially designed composting station. Do get in touch with your local government administration, as the office may provide composting bins for free to encourage sustainable gardening practices. It is important to take proper care of your composting bin – keep it moist and secure and add layers of different materials regularly. Unprotected composting bins may attract insects and rodents. Take a look at composting know-how to learn more. Use the worms Beware fellow gardeners as vermicomposting is on the rise! More and more home-grown and professional gardeners are drawn to using worms as green waste disposal system which can turn garden and organic home waste into the ultimate soil enricher. Designated worm species, such as red wigglers and white worms will gradually consume your waste and turn it into nutrients-rich worm castings that can be used as a top or side dressing for the plants or worked into the soil without burning the roots. You can get worm boxes from your local gardening store or make them yourself. If you opt for the latter, do remember to line the box with fabric and drill little holes for drainage. Arrange waste pick-up Many countries have implemented regular yard waste pick-up – you simply need to bag your waste and leave it on your parkway. Unfortunately, there is a significant drawback to this method, as you are allowed to dispose of limited amount of garden leftovers. When you are planning a major clean-up or you are about to finish an extensive yard project it is a good idea to hire professional waste removal company to tackle your garden waste problem. Companies such as 1300 Rubbish will take care of as much of green waste as you need. The undeniable advantage of waste pick-up is the fact that you won't have to lift a finger, as the heavy lifting will be done by the professionals. Take it to the nearest waste collection center If you do not want to arrange for organized waste pick-up you can always take your garden trash to the nearest collection service yourself. This method might be time-consuming, but it gives you the comfort of knowing that your waste has been disposed of legally and safely. You can also find tailor-made facilities designed specifically to handle large quantities of green waste. Collection centers and dumps may charge you a small fee per weight or load and you will be expected to unload your deposit in the right section of the tip. Garden waste can build up pretty quickly, therefore it is essential to implement efficient and sustainable strategy for green waste removal. You no longer need gas-guzzling chippers or heavy machinery to get rid of excessive waste, as with the help of our 4 tips you will be able to handle your green waste like an expert!