Returning: War on Waste

Award-winning lifestyle series War on Waste is returning to ABC in late July.

Three new episodes, hosted by Craig Reucassel will tackle plastic water bottles and straws, e-waste, furniture waste as well as going deeper on previous topics like food waste and the recycling crisis.

This year it has also spawned a junior version, Project Planet, to screen on ABC ME.

In 2017, the series reached 4.3 million viewers and was the ABC’s most successful social media campaign. One video on dumping edible bananas attracted more than 20 million views.

David Anderson, ABC Director of Entertainment & Specialist, said: “War on Waste highlights the ABC’s unrivalled capacity to spark national conversations and drive community action and social change that impacts the daily lives of Australians. The distinctively ABC series empowers people to take immediate steps to reduce their consumption of plastic and electronic goods, and wastage of coffee cups and food. Waste is a universal issue, it impacts everyone.”

The AACTA winning and Logie-nominated series, which also won the prestigious Gold Banksia Sustainability award, revealed that size shouldn’t matter when it comes to buying bananas, encouraged viewers to BYO coffee cups, confronted politicians with a giant ball of plastic bags, challenged state parliaments to ban single-use plastic bags and revealed why fast fashion is not fashionable at all.

The series showed Australians how they can take steps to reduce waste in their daily lives and encouraged big business and politicians to rethink the waste issue, with some inspiring outcomes.

• Responsible Cafes, which promotes reusable coffee cups, went from having 420 cafes on board to having 1050 the week following broadcast up almost overnight (that number is now over 3600);

• The Keep Cup company website crashed and sales rose 400% after the series highlighted issues around disposable coffee cups ;

• Woolworths and Coles (both in the series) announced lightweight plastic bag bans;

• Following the War on Waste, Foodbank had waiting lists for volunteering, to the point that NSW, Victoria and WA were fully booked through to the end of the year.

But the war is far from over…

The new series reveals our unhealthy reliance on plastic, especially single-use plastic items such as plastic bottles and straws that damage our waterways, oceans and marine life.

Craig also exposes the effects of e-waste, one of the fastest-growing types of waste . Tonnes of discarded laptops, mobile phones and electronic goods cause high toxicity levels in landfill, which leaches into the soil and water. While food waste remains a massive issue in Australia and not just because of what we throw out at home, Craig goes undercover to expose the shocking amount of food we waste when we eat out and shows exactly why this is so bad for the environment.

War on Waste production credits: A Lune Media Australia Production for ABC. Principal production investment from Screen Australia and ABC. Financed with the assistance of Create NSW. Directors Jodi Boylan and Sandra Welkerling. Executive Producer Jodi Boylan, Leonie Lowe and David Galloway. ABC Commissioning Editor Stephen Oliver, ABC Head of Factual Steve Bibb.

Tuesday, July 24, at 8.30pm on ABC.