This week Real Dirt, Fast offers up an amazing fact about rubbish: American airlines throw out enough aluminium cans every year to build 58 new 747 jets.

As the Sydney Morning Herald reported:

The Trash Landings report, by the Natural Resources Defence Council, also found US airlines disposed of 9000 tonnes of plastic a year, and enough newspapers and magazines to fill a football field more than 70 metres deep.

About 600 grams of rubbish is left behind by each US passenger, and despite three-quarters of it being recyclable or compostible, most ends up in landfill.

This story made me think there is a wee, slight problem with how we manage our resources. I read it after I was asked this morning what my family does to reduce our use of plastic. It is the second awkward question I have had to answer since the release of my new book which touches on sustainabilty. Regarding plastic: the question came at an opportune moment as I had just been on a ten-minute plastic frenzy, which saw my sustainability credibility shot to pieces.

I had put a plastic tub of yoghurt into the recycling, sneakily lifted some glad wrap on some pasta sauce in a bowl in the fridge that was supposed to be for dinner, tossed out one of those plastic/foil coffee wrappers and put a block of cheese into a recycled plastic bag.

The other question I had to answer was what right I had to have four children, considering the problems with the planet’s resources and population growth. I didn’t know what to say but a friend responded that I needed them all so they could pull the plough on the family farm.

Real Dirt, Fast promises to summarise the news on environmental issues so in good faith I have to tell you that there was, again, a mass of stories about how hard industry would be hit by emissions trading schemes and attempts to tackle climate change. There was much talk about how executives would have to hitchhike instead of fly their private jets to the Bermudas and how hard it would be to continue donating to the dolphin protection fund when Tuna Futures were so unstable.

On a head-furrowing, beard scratching note, the hirsute Don Burke of Burke’s Backyard fame has decided to collect a paypacket from Gunns by acting as an advisor on their doomed pulp mill. He told the Australian he wanted to help the company find an alternative to old growth shaving. From now on, he vowed, he would source his facial hair only from plantation certified hairdressers.  But seriously, how do you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror when you supposedly love plants and work for a company logging some of the biggest trees left on the planet?

This week Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) chairman Ziggy Switkowski was trying to explain why the OPAL nuclear reactor had developed a crack after someone breathed too hard on it. Never on the back foot, even if his reactor has concrete cancer, he had another crack – this time at convincing his fellow citizens how much we need nuclear power. When is someone going to explain to Ziggy that we already have a nuclear power plant? It’s called the sun.