Making it easy to Do the Right Thing in Queensland

 A new recycling initiative will significantly reduce waste to landfill by enabling shoppers to recycle.

The official launch of a new recycling initiative at Indooroopilly Shopping Centre will result in reduced environmental impacts in Queensland and is the first of a national rollout.

The combined industry and government initiative has been led by the Packaging Stewardship Forum (PSF) of the Australian Food and Grocery Council and supported by the Queensland government, the National Packaging Covenant and Lend Lease-managed shopping centres nationally.

The Packaging Stewardship Forums’ General Manager Jenny Pickles said that this initiative was an important step for public place recycling in Queensland to encourage recycling when people are away from home and demonstrated a commitment by all stakeholders, including the beverage industry, to increase the recycling of its packaging. “There are more than 1300 shopping centres in Australia, which attract more than 1.75 billion shopper visits per year. If we can capture the recyclable products from the waste disposed during each of these visits, we are going to make a significant difference to people’s behaviour, which will translate into a tangible difference on our environment.

“It is critical that we encourage the recycling of items such as bottles and cans by keeping it simple and making it easy for the public and for shopping centre staff to do the right thing. That’s what the bins and signage aim to achieve. We are promoting behavioural change amongst consumers, which we believe will feed through into other areas including the home and workplace,” Pickles said.

Lend Lease-managed centres forecast several positive impacts associated with the rollout of recycling initiatives across their centres nationally, including an increase of over 400% in recycling of bottles and cans. This equates nationally to at least 210 tonnes of waste saved from landfill each year - the equivalent of almost 100 rubbish trucks. As the program expands, it is expected that this figure will continue to grow.

The recycling infrastructure and signage in food courts, along with improved back-of-house waste management systems, is a joint $170,000 initiative funded by the PSF, the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), National Packaging Covenant and Lend Lease-managed shopping centres.

Queensland’s Minister for the Environment and Resource Management, Kate Jones, officially launched the initiative at Indooroopilly Shopping Centre this morning.

The signage carries an awareness campaign message, devised by DERM and the PSF, of Do the Right Thing, Use the Right Bin - aimed at encouraging people to make the effort when they are away from home to not only put their rubbish in the bin, but to put it in the right bin.

Rhon Levin, Lend Lease’s CEO of Retail in Australia is confident of achieving exceptional outcomes from this initiative and says that Lend Lease-managed centres nationally are committed to improving their environmental footprint through increased recycling.

“Lend Lease-managed centres have set an ambitious target to increase their total recycling from the current best practice rate of 30% to at least 50% in the next two years and this program is a key part of the strategy to achieve this.

“While it is early days yet, since the installation of the new recycling systems at Indooroopilly in June 2009 we have already seen a 300% increase in the recycling of bottles and cans by our customers, taking recyclable material collected to around four tonnes per month.

“Rolling this initiative out across Lend Lease’s retail portfolio will result in a significant reduction in waste to landfill and greenhouse gases.

“Through this initiative we have worked closely with the PSF and the Queensland government, in taking the important step to implement new recycling systems. We are confident that staff and shoppers within our centres will do the right thing and use the right bin. The implementation of this very worthwhile initiative could not have been implemented without the support of the centre owners, including Australian Prime Property Fund, Eureka Funds Management, GPT and Westfield.”