Creating change with Craig Reucassel

Craig Reucassel is best known for his cheeky antics on The Chaser and declaring War on Waste, and now for captivating a crowd at The University of Queensland.

The ABC comedy and documentary star, Craig Reucassel, took to the stage at UQ’s Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology Scholars Evening to share his personal experiences around creating change.

"When looking for solutions in this area, you really need to consider all the contributing factors," he said.

"Having the technological solutions doesn't always get you over the line.

"The most difficult thing is - how do you change the behaviour of people who don't care?"

This is a problem Craig is helping tackle with his documentary series War on Waste, which focuses on how we're impacting the environment through food waste, plastics, e-waste, infrastructure and fashion.

"Fashion is really frustrating," he said.

"The whole industry is built in a way that promotes the wrong cycle.

"Innovators in the room here, if you can come up with a good way to sustain fashion, you're going to smash it," he told the audience.

Australia produces 48 million tonnes of waste each year and half of that is dumped in landfill.

School of Engineering lecturer Dr Denys Villa Gomez is one of many UQ researchers who is helping to find a solution to our country's waste problem.

"UQ's environmental engineers work to measure, understand and deliver built and natural sustainability," she said.

"In our state-of-the-art facilities, we are developing new technologies to transform waste into energy and to extract heavy metals that can be harmful to our environment."

Here are just a few ways UQ researchers are doing their part to fight for a more sustainable future.

Media: UQ Communications, Paige Ashby, p.ashby@uq.edu.au, 0430 511 615.