Business waste gets $23 million government and industry recycle makeover

Recent data from Australian waste management company Transpacific Industries Group Ltd suggests fewer than 20% of Australian businesses recycle.

Ed Cordner, CEO of the National Packaging Covenant, says most small to medium-size enterprises have generally not been offered a complete and cost-effective recycling service by waste companies. But this is all about to change.

Recently, the covenant provided funding to Transpacific to provide a recycling service to businesses nationally to encourage them to recycle.

Called Harvest, the program is worth a combined total of $23 million.

Covenant chair Dick Gross said the new service would divert a massive number of tonnes of packaging waste from landfill.

“We anticipate 80,000 tonnes of packaging waste to be diverted from landfill over the next 22 months through this new Transpacific business recycling service. It will also provide important data we can use to analyse the C&I waste stream. But we expect those tonnes recycled to continue to increase as more businesses reap the rewards of a simpler, more complete and cost-effective recycling service while knowing they are helping the environment," Gross said.

“Transpacific’s new service is a good example of business and government working together to stop packaging waste ending up in landfill, thereby saving our natural resources, greenhouse gas reductions and the environment,” Cordner said.