When British man Daniel Webb decided to collect all his plastic waste for a year, he never imagined the polypropylene mountain his buying habits would build.

His 4,490 pieces of plastic waste are pasted to a giant billboard in the coastal town of Margate in south-east England as part of an exhibition called "Mural By The Sea".

Mr Webb's project shows us how much junk we each contribute to the planet, and conversely how much we can reduce our impact by changing a few habits.

So with that in mind, here's some simple changes we can all make to turn our landfill mountains into mole-hills.

Toothbrushes

Using bamboo toothbrushes could cut down around 900 tonnes of land fill every year. ( The Environmental Toothbrush )

Reducing your plastic waste by changing your toothbrush might seem like nit-picking, but Australians throw out around 900 tonnes of toothbrushes every year.

Does that number seem too high? It's based on each Australian only throwing away two 20-gram toothbrushes per year.

There are now a range of biodegradable options to chose from, mostly made from bamboo.

According to the people at The Environmental Toothbrush, the first eco-friendly toothbrush in the world was designed here in Australia.

"It was invented in Brisbane by a lady dentist back in 2008," director James Wilson said.

Bamboo is fast-growing and strong, making it a renewable replacement for plastic, and it can be thrown in the compost when you're done with it.

If you are going to go the bamboo option, pick one with compostable packaging. There are some out there that come packaged in plastic.

And remember to remove the bristles first before throwing it in the compost — most are still made from nylon. If you're really keen, pigs' hair bristles are a niche option.

Composting

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Get Composting

Composting food scraps rather than throwing them in the bin can be up to 25 times better for the planet.

When our food scraps get buried in landfill, they breakdown anaerobically into methane, a greenhouse gas with 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Community gardens may take your compost if you don't have space. ( 720 ABC Perth: Emma Wynne )

By composting our food waste in aerobic conditions like a compost bin, they still produce carbon dioxide as they break down, but methane is limited.

Gardening Australia researcher and horticulturalist Patrick Honan says you can start an outdoor compost with as little as one square metre of space.

The trick is to balance the ratio of nitrogen and carbon. This sounds complicated but is actually pretty straightforward if you follow some basic rules.

Household waste like food scraps, tea leaves, and things like chicken manure are all high in nitrogen, whereas as things like lawn clippings and straw are high in carbon.

Add these to your compost pile in a ratio of one part nitrogen to around 15 parts carbon, keep the pile moist but not waterlogged, turn it occasionally and you're away.

"It sounds complicated but it's really just a matter of getting your eye in," Honan said.

If you don't have a backyard, there are still options.

Local community gardens will often take household food scraps for their compost, or there are small, self-contained compost drums that can live on your balcony, or in the kitchen.

Ditch the coffee pods

Australians use around 3 million coffee pods every day. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Harriet Tatham )

Billions of aluminium and plastic coffee pods end up in landfill every year.

Australians consume around 3 million single-serve coffee pods every day, according to the University of Melbourne's sustainable campus advice, and the mixed plastic and aluminium variety are unable to be sorted at our recycling facilities.

The problem is so great that former Nespresso boss Jean-Paul Gaillard urged people to stop using them in 2016.

"It will be a disaster and it's time to move on that. People shouldn't sacrifice the environment for convenience," he said at the time.

He even wrote to Nespresso's advertising celebrity George Clooney, informing him of the environmental impacts of the pods, but said he didn't receive a response.

So what are the options?

If you're really into the pods, choose the 100 per cent aluminium variety, which can be returned to some stores and participating florists for recycling.

Alternatively, there are some compostable pod options on the market.

But there are also user-friendly home coffee machines that don't require pods at all. Some will automatically grind beans into standard shots, ready to be poured.

You can also buy pre-ground coffee and use a stovetop espresso machine.

If you prefer takeaway coffee, check with your coffee shop that they use beans rather than pods. And remember to take your reusable cup instead of using a disposable takeaway cup.

Forget fast fashion

Fast fashion encourages the perspective that clothes become obsolete before they're worn out. ( Reuters: Gonzalo Fuentes )

The idea that clothes can be "out of fashion" means that we're sometimes encouraged to dispose of things that don't really need replacing.

"Fast fashion" — cheap, mass-produced clothing — means this is easy on our wallets to do.

But there's always a cost to clothes manufacturing, and if you're not paying it, then garment makers and the environment probably are.

So what can we do to reduce the negative impact our clothes have on the environment?

The first step is impulse control, according to fashion and textile designer Mark Liu from the University of Technology Sydney.

He said a lot of clothes we throw out are hardly worn at all.

"A lot of people will have a bad day and channel that into buying clothing," he said.

"There's a philosophy that you should buy well but buy fewer things."

Here are Mark's tips for reducing your fashion impacts without compromising on style:

Choose natural fabrics — these are biodegradable and may be compostable, whereas synthetics take a long time to break down.

Choose natural fabrics — these are biodegradable and may be compostable, whereas synthetics take a long time to break down. Prioritise selling or swapping clothes you don't want. Most of what we donate to charity shops heads overseas or ends up as rags. Sell clothes online, have a garage sale, or organise a clothing swap among friends.

Prioritise selling or swapping clothes you don't want. Most of what we donate to charity shops heads overseas or ends up as rags. Sell clothes online, have a garage sale, or organise a clothing swap among friends. Check out online clothing swaps for platforms and events.

Check out online clothing swaps for platforms and events. If you've bought something off the rack that doesn't fit quite right, take it to a tailor and have it altered. Do the same if you change size, or if you've got favourite clothes that are showing some wear and tear.

If you've bought something off the rack that doesn't fit quite right, take it to a tailor and have it altered. Do the same if you change size, or if you've got favourite clothes that are showing some wear and tear. Avoid fast fashion. Buy quality clothes that will last.

Avoid fast fashion. Buy quality clothes that will last. Prioritise brands that have transparency in their supply chains. Fashion Revolution compile an annual fashion transparency index, ranking the top 100 global fashion brands on their transparency regarding suppliers, supply-chain policies, and social and environmental impacts.

Prioritise brands that have transparency in their supply chains. Fashion Revolution compile an annual fashion transparency index, ranking the top 100 global fashion brands on their transparency regarding suppliers, supply-chain policies, and social and environmental impacts. Find yourself a clothing buddy. If you have a friend or family member who is a similar size you can share.

Find yourself a clothing buddy. If you have a friend or family member who is a similar size you can share. Clothes for big, one-off occasions like school formals or other formal events can be rented.

Clothes for big, one-off occasions like school formals or other formal events can be rented. If you feel the impulse to get something new, try substituting shopping by going where everything is free — rent a book from a library or borrow an item of clothing from a friend.

If you feel the impulse to get something new, try substituting shopping by going where everything is free — rent a book from a library or borrow an item of clothing from a friend. Do a clothing audit every year. Go through your clothes and see what you wear and what you don't. Then try to use that to decide what you need in future.

Plastic bags

Australians use more than four billion plastic bags every year. ( Getty Images: Paul Kennedy )

Woolworths Group says it gives out more than 3.2 billion single-use plastic bags every year, with another few billion coming out of Coles and independent supermarkets.

But the bag bans are coming: Every state and territory except New South Wales and Victoria will have single-use plastic bans by July 1, and Woolies and Coles are introducing their own nationwide bans.

They'll still be offering heavy-duty plastic bags at a small cost, but those thicker bags take around four times the energy to make, and still end up breaking down into harmful microplastics in the ocean.

The best option, according to Professor Sami Kara from the University of New South Wales, is to buy multi-use bags made from cotton or other biodegradable materials, or even make them yourself.

"I remember my grandmother, she used to make her bags from leftover fabric. That's the mindset we need to be shifting to."

A UK government-funded study into the comparative greenhouse-gas costs of different bags found that non-woven polypropylene "green bags" — the kind sold at supermarkets — need to be used 11 times to break even with single-use bags.

Cotton bags need to be used 131 times. However, a well-made cotton bag can potentially be used thousands of times, and is fully biodegradable if it ever makes its way into the environment.

If you're only going to change one thing, going plastic bag free is probably the single biggest way you can reduce your waste today.