L to R Angela Maier - Waste Education Officer, Canterbury City Council, The Hon. Ian Campbell - Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Mike Vendy - Steel Can Recycling Council

For the past year the waste team at Canterbury have worked tirelessly to introduce a new waste and recycling system accompanied by a comprehensive education program. Old rubbish bins were replaced with smaller ones, and recycling crates were replaced with large commingled recycling bins. The changes have resulted in an 87% increase in recycling with overall waste decreasing by 11%. Steel can recycling has been the area to most benefit from the new service with a massive increase of 450%, since the inception of the new service.

The extensive education campaign reflects the multi-cultural and multi-lingual characteristics of the Canterbury area. All materials are printed in English, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Greek and Arabic. In addition to educating residents, Canterbury City Council's new Waste Audit Officers provide face-to-face assistance and can be found out and about on liveried scooters checking the contents of recycling bins. A telephone hotline has also been established to assist residents with waste and recycling issues.

As a reward for their efforts, two members of Canterbury City Council will be heading off next year on an overseas study trip worth more than $AUD10,000 to see examples of best practice in waste management abroad.

2003 FINALIST HIGHLY COMMENDED FOR INNOVATION

L to R Councillor Greg Davies - Mayor Penrith City Council, The Hon. Ian Campbell - Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Mike Vendy - Steel Can Recycling Council

Penrith City Council has won the award for innovation for their impressive 'Can It' programme, which, specifically focused on Steel Cans, not only clearly demonstrated a commitment to steel can recycling but was necessary to stimulate an increase in the low number of steel cans currently being recycled. During the three-month campaign period from April to June 2003 residents were invited to write their names and phone numbers on their clean used steel cans and place them in their yellow recycling bins. They were able to enter as many cans as they wished and there was a selection of prizes available including a front-loading washing machine, a family weekend away at an eco-retreat and more. An audit of recyclables before and during the campaign period revealed increased steel can recycling of 155%.

2003 FINALIST HIGHLY COMMENDED FOR INFRASTRUCTURE

L to R Peter Gesling - General Manager, Port Stephens Council, The Hon. Ian Campbell - Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Mike Vendy - Steel Can Recycling Council

Port Stephens Council's one bin system achieves excellent steel can recovery with 98% of steel cans recovered. Through Port Stephens' integrated waste management strategy, council gets 'two bites of the cherry' when it comes to steel can recycling. Cans are collected through both the kerbside recycling collection as well as the Bedminster Co-composting process which converts putresicible waste collected in the Port Stephens area into agricultural grade compost, whilst at the same time screening some types of recyclables such as steel cans.

OTHER FINALISTS

Three other councils were commended for their waste education and collection programmes and were awarded with certificates of commendation at the awards ceremony in Canberra. City of Casey in Victoria, Hervey Bay City Council in Queensland and Wollongong City Council in NSW all were commended by the expert panel of judges for their excellent programmes.

City of Casey

Following their Waste Management Strategy 2000, City of Casey commenced a new waste and recycling service in August 2002 that has resulted in an increase for steel can recovery of just over 11% since the introduction of the new service. The new services meet all criteria of EcoRecycle Victoria's Best Practice Kerbside Recycling Programme and includes:

• changing to a fully commingled recycling system,
• allocation of around $60,000 per year on recycling education on top of the production and distribution of calendars and information booklets,
• provision of a choice for a smaller garbage bin,
• requirements on the sorting contractor to conduct regular tours of the MRF; and
• the use of video cameras and a bin inspection programme with 200-300 bins inspected every collection day to reduce contamination in the recycling bins.

Hervey Bay City Council

Hervey Bay City Council has achieved excellent increases in steel can recycling since introducing a two-bin system to their area. Council moved from a divided 240litre bin with a weekly pick up to a 2 x 240litre bin collected weekly for waste and fortnightly for recycling. Prior to the introduction of the new service Council embarked on a community consultation programme to determine what the community wanted. The new system enabled Council to embark on an extensive education programme that has resulted in a 107% increase in steel can recycling and 88% increase in total recycling yield.

Wollongong City Council

Wollongong City Council are shortlisted for their initiative 'Be Waste Wise and Recycle Steel Cans'. With impressive year on year increases for Steel Can Recycling, Wollongong attribute their success to their extensive education programme. The programme includes the community Waste Education and Visitor Centre at Glengarry Cottage, a waste and recycling hotline, a holistic marketing and advertising campaign in the local media, and their green team customer service officers, amongst other things.

The education programme was coupled with a state of the art SWERF (Solid Waste and Energy Recycling Facility), which has the potential to retrieve steel cans from the general waste stream . When the SWERF is fully operational, a 100% recovery rate of steel cans from the residential waste collection service will be possible, a total of approximately 1353 tonnes annually. Council currently recovers about 60% of all steel cans used, considerably higher than the national recovery rate of 43.5%.