Shelby Byrne wrote to Scott Morrison after learning about sustainability at school and decided she could make a difference.

Mr Morrison highlighted her idea during his Facebook announcement that the Federal Government, along with the states, had agreed to ban exporting our waste to other countries where it can end up in waterways and the ocean.

The Terang College grade four pupil said that when the class did an audit of rubbish at the school, after watching the ABC's War On Waste, the pile of paper was the biggest - "nearly as tall as a prep" student.

After doing a poster for school on turning paper waste into paper mache and then homewares such as storage bowels, dishers and figurines - an idea Shelby said would create employment for those without a job by opening workshops in every towns - she put pen to paper and wrote to the PM.

Using her newly taught persuasive writing skills, the letter outlined Shelby's idea for a happier, cleaner future, complete with the slogan "Better use, Better World".

By turning the county's paper waste into paper mache and then people without jobs could work in the local paper mache workshop to help create homewares like storage bowels, dishes and figurines.

"I came up with this idea because I thought something had to be done about this and I thought I could make a change," she said.

Despite the envelope being addressed simply to "Australian Government/Parliament/Prime Minister" it still arrived on Scott Morrison's desk.

Days later, her mum Susan got a call from someone in the PM's office to say he had read her letter.

"I got one heck of a shock when I heard from the office saying watch Facebook," Mrs Byrne said.

"We were actually quite surprised that it made it to the Prime Minister's office."

Shelby said she was surprised the PM had read her letter. "I was really excited because he's a busy man and I thought it would be really good to get my words noticed," she said.

"It's bad that our paper gets wasted and goes to landfill, and it's a continuous problem and it really needs to be sorted out.

"We need to stop wasting precious paper and start reusing it otherwise the number of trees will decrease and we won't have enough oxygen because trees and wetlands are carbon sinks which store carbon for us to live.

"It's not only us that's affected by the deforestation of trees for paper, it's the animals because some of those animals live in hollow trees."

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