Recent data from Australia's largest waste management company Transpacific Industries Group Ltd, suggests less than 20% of Australian businesses recycle.
But it is not their fault. Mr Ed Cordner, CEO of the National Packaging Covenant, a unique initiative between government and industry to stop packaging waste ending up in landfill, 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 new recycling service to businesses nationally to encourage them to recycle.
Called 'Harvest', where recycling reaps rewards (phone 131339), the new program is worth a combined total of $23 million and Mr Cordner says it will revolutionise the way businesses dispose of their waste.
"Transpacific's new service offering is the biggest transformational change for recycling since Councils introduced household (kerbside) recycling bins in a big way in the 1990s. Through offering businesses specially marked bins - Landfill, Recycle (for bulk packaging) and Comix (for beverage and food containers) - a much greater amount of recyclables such as bulk packaging (cardboard, plastic film and expanded polystyrene) and food and beverage containers can be captured from the Commercial & Industrial waste stream - one of the largest waste streams in Australia," Mr Cordner said.
Covenant Chair, Cr Dick Gross, said the new service would divert a massive amount 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."
Transpacific's Executive Chairman Terry Peabody said: "Every person running a business should have the opportunity to recycle in a cost effective way, just as we do so at home. We appreciate the support of the Covenant to help us provide this new service, and are committed to working together long term," Mr Peabody said.
Mr Cordner 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."
This is one of four new Covenant projects starting in the next 12 months, which will leverage $42 million of investment into recycling infrastructure and litter prevention in Australia.
The National Packaging Covenant aims to increase Australia's packaging recycling rate to 65% by 2010.
