Craig Reucassel is an Australian writer and comedian who is best known for his work with The Chaser and for going through your bins on The War on Waste. Craig and a group of friends founded The Chaser newspaper, which led to a number of ABC TV Chaser programs including The Election Chaser, CNNNN, The Chaser's War on Everything, Yes We Canberra and The Hamster Wheel. Most recently he's appeared on ABC in The Chaser's Media Circus, The Chaser's Election Desk and the current series of satirical consumer affairs show The Checkout.
In 2017 Craig hosted the War on Waste on ABC TV. Craig was born in South Africa but moved to Australia at a young age. He attended Bowral Public School and Bowral High School, but despite this never became a famous cricketer. He then attended the University of Sydney, and graduated with honours in Bachelor of Economics (Social Science) and Bachelor of Laws.
At some point he also co-hosted the triple j shows Today Today, Bloody Sunday and The Race Race with fellow Chaser Chris Taylor. He has performed in David Williamson's Jack of Hearts and Tim Firth's Neville's Island at The Ensemble. After the success of the first War on Waste program series Craig has embarked on a second series continuing his critical and first-hand look at household, retail and farming waste in Australia and asks, what has changed in the Australian psyche, and in our consumer culture, that has led us to become among the most wasteful nations in the developed world? Craig asks why Australians are generating millions of tonnes more waste every year – in food, fashion, packaging, electronics and more. We’ll discover the truth about where various kinds of waste actually end up, and learn what we can do to reduce the staggering volumes we produce. Importantly, he projects into the future, with the amount of waste increasing in Australia by nearly 8% a year what happens if we do nothing? It is time for us, as a nation, to seriously re-examine the ways we consume and dispose of consumer items?
Craig’s presentation highlights how consumer demand and behaviours are impacting our household and retail waste and how packaging and food waste are contributing to the massive volumes of waste produced each year. What effect will this have on our future and what can we do to reduce waste? With a fast paced wit and great intellect Craig is also a highly effective facilitator and an entertaining, supremely organised MC and host.
