Insight 2024 Section C

Foremost, Sharma highlights the pre-existing state-wide precedent surrounding the availability and implementation of the FOGO collection service, urging Merraways representatives to also adopt the transformative actions of their counterparts in other council areas. Sharma begins with a revision of the expectations of “elected members”, elucidating their, in the community's perspective—as made manifest by the inclusive pronoun “we”inclusive pronoun—commitment to “keeping our local area sustainable, environmentally responsible, and forward thinkingsyndeton of adjectives.” Here, the syndeton of adjectives primarily denotes the community's perception of the onus placed upon their elected representatives, underpinned by the belief that they must enact community suggestions to fulfill their vested role of continually improving community outcomes. Furthermore, the implicit sentiment that the Council members' dissent, if evoked at the meeting, is starkly against, not only prized community values, but rather an inability to fulfill their comprehensive duty to “represent [the Merraway community]appeal to civic duty.” However, the hopeful and connotatively polite plea, “we hope that you choose to vote yespolite, hopeful tone”, undercuts any perceived chagrin, maintaining the author's position as a reasonable and courteous community member. Such position lends Sharma valuable favourability in the eyes of her audience of Councillors as she goes on to posit that “many Councils are already offering FOGO collection to residentsappeal to precedent” and that “other[s]…[will] introduce it during the next twelve months.” Here, Sharma propagates a nascent recognition of the Council's own inaction by likening the proliferation of FOGO collection service state-wide as a precedent, an essentially “vital serviceloaded adjective” that must also be provided to Merraways Council residents. The homonymic pun, “we believe there is no time to ‘waste’homonymic pun”, however, once again mollifies the palpable strength of Sharma's argumentation, utilising humour to deflect any negative feelings of blame placed upon the Councillors for their inaction whilst underscoring the residents' desire for FOGO implementation as not one that exists in isolation in the community, but rather one that is resoundingly echoed throughout the “beautiful statepositive connotation”. The definitive full rhyme of superlative adjectives “greener, cleanerfull rhyme” in the syndeton, “becoming greener, cleaner, and more efficientsyndeton of superlatives” ultimately direct the focus of Sharma's reasoning to the residents' unvarnished desire for improved sustainability in the Merraways local Council area, presenting her to be just as committed to the improvement of community outcomes as the elected representatives.

Sharma acknowledges the difficulties of personalised organic and food waste management to present a Council facilitated FOGO service as a valuable solution, one that demolishes current accessibility barriers. Her reference to the “pause in national soft plastics recycling programstopical reference” paints a glaringly obvious causal nexus between comprehensive and publicly accessible sustainability programs and individual responses, as illustrated by the emotive “fee[ling] more and more uncomfortableemotive language”. As such, Sharma divulges the unparalleled importance for accessible public infrastructure, such as the FOGO collection service, to maintain the livelihoods of “all [the] residentsinclusive language”, thus suggesting the Council's favourable decision has the potential to be landmark in “building a healthy communityvalue-laden phrasing.” Sharma is also sympathetic to the struggles of those community members for whom individualistic composting systems are “not practicalappeal to empathy”, foregrounding the lack of public collective service as a restrictive barrier preventing well-meaning and environmentally-concerned community members from actualizing their yearns through recycling. This sentiment is propounded in the accompanying photograph of an individual discarding their plate of food scraps into a sectioned wastebin, containing a dedicated compartment for other organic waste separated from other items of general household waste. The binary sectioning of the bin paints an ideal fantasy of the change that the FOGO collection services could inspire—a community where all individuals can “easily…make use of their kitchen wastereassuring word choice.” The image's caption, “FOGO will make composting easier for allimage caption,” echoes this sentiment, as later also concurred by her assertion that “kerbside collection gives everyone a fair chance to participateappeal to fairness.” Herein, the appeal to community values of altruism and equal access recall the notions underpinning an ideal, harmonious society, in turn persuading the audience of councillors to facilitate the change and extinguish the current barriers preventing individuals from integrating composting as an integral facet of their quotidian lives.

Sharma then dissects the inextricable link between a publicly accessible FOGO collection service and a more sustainable future for all community members through cause-and-effect reasoning. Sharma's citation of the credible and prominent environmental conservation source Clean Up Australia's statistic that the average Australian produces “300 kilograms of food waste per personstatistic / expert source” each year bolsters her recognition of the contribution of current systematic inadequacies in exacerbating a dire national problem, in turn imbuing her final section of argumentation with a potent sense of alarm and urgency. Similarly, the extolling of a FOGO collection service as a definitive, “simpl[e]reassuring diction” solution to this “damaging outcomenegative connotation” assuages the Councillors' alarm by presenting a reasonable, viable, and easily implemented solution, allowing them to reclaim a sense of control amidst the apocalyptic imagery of “food waste…left to rot…produc[ing] excess greenhouse gasesapocalyptic imagery.” Despite this, the author then transitions to an optimistic tone, promulgating the ameliorative effect of FOGO services in acting as “represent[ative] [of] an immense reduction in…wasteshift to optimism.” Sharma draws a causal sequence between the ubiquitous implementation of organic waste collection services and better sustainability practices, appealing to the Councillors' vested concerns for the future with forwards-directed chronological phrases such as “better future for us and for our childrenappeal to family.” Ultimately, this notion is made resoundingly clear by the rhetorical question, “Who would want to vote against that?rhetorical question”, dispelling any perceived benefits of declining FOGO facilitation in the Councillors' psyches, advancing acceptance of the proposition as the only acceptable—and logical—decision.