Your top recycling questions answered

What happens to your recycling items when they go in the recycling bin? What are the common recycling mistakes householders make?

Sunshine Coast Council residents can discover answers to those burning recycling questions and much more during Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week (November 9-15).

Environment and Community Programs Portfolio Councillor Jenny McKay said council was helping educate residents by holding a free "Recycle Right Open Day", featuring a tour of the Waste2Resource Education Centre in Nambour on Saturday, November 14.

“Council’s Waste2Resource Education Centre offers an informative and educational opportunity for the public to see the behind the scenes of where your waste actually goes,” Cr McKay said.

“Thanks to council’s Waste2Resource STARS program grade four students at Siena Catholic Primary School are already ahead of the game, having been trained and educated through the Waste2Resource Education Centre.

“And this week Siena will launch a school-wide recycling program that will be run by the clued up grade four students.”

A new report from Planet Ark, titled All Sorted: Answering the Big Recycling Questions1 and commissioned for National Recycling Week, includes the top mistakes and main contaminants that confuse people when they are recycling.

“While Sunshine Coast residents are great recyclers, with a low 3-5% contamination rate, most of us have a few questions,” Cr McKay said.

“Be sure to come along to council’s Recycle Right Open Day where you will have all your big recycling questions answered and also learn many more sustainability tips and tricks along the way.”

Council’s free Recycle Right Open Day will be held from 9.30 to 11.30am at the Waste2Resource Education Centre. The event will include a presentation, morning tea, truck demonstration and landfill and resource recovery centre tour. Booking is essential due to limited spaces. Location details will be provided upon booking.

For further information or to book, visit council’s website www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au or phone 5475 7272.

RECYCLING – DID YOU KNOW?

• Recycling reduces and can even eliminate the need to extract raw materials, saving limited natural resources. For example, 75% of all of the aluminium ever produced is still in use today because it can be recycled infinitely.

• It’s not just the planet that benefits from our efforts, as business and people profit too. The process of recycling and composting creates more jobs than incineration and landfill, with 9.2 jobs in recycling for every 2.8 jobs in landfill2.

• A study of almost 24,000 individuals across 27 countries found a significant positive relationship between recycling and life satisfaction. The result was linked with the positive emotions associated with altruistic behaviour and doing the ‘right thing’3.

• Looking to the future, new product stewardship schemes such as those that deal with TVs, computers, batteries and plastic bottles, will help promote the recycling and safe disposal of items that were routinely sent to landfill in the past. The new Australian Recycling Label has also just been launched to help reduce consumer confusion.