Campaign Lifts Lid on Recycling for Householders
Green Industries SA launched a new campaign urging householders to consider what they put in their recycling bins and their green organics bins.
The Which Bin advertising campaign, launched in May 2019, featured a series of television commercials which help to improve a householder’s awareness of what can and cannot be placed into the kerbside recycling bins.
While South Australians continue to lead the nation in recycling activity, the wrong items continue to be placed in the kerbside collected bin.
Food and green organic waste makes up almost half of the weight in household general waste bins, unnecessarily going to landfill.
The more that can be diverted from landfill to recycling and composting, the better for both the environment and the economy – reducing costs for local councils whilst creating jobs.
The Which Bin campaign uses humour to show Vinnie and his family facing a range of common recycling dilemmas in their everyday lives.
The campaign aims to improve knowledge on correct behaviour and to drive traffic to the newly developed Which Bin website (www.whichbin.sa.gov.au) which provides householders with a definitive and easy to use guide to recycling, irrespective of which South Australian council, suburb or region they live in.
To complement the roll out of the campaign, a suite of resources for local government is being developed including calendars, bin stickers, signage, posters and customisable social media assets.
A High Level Working Group on Recycling Education, comprising representatives of state government, industry, local government and KESAB, guided the development of the campaign.
The funding is part of the Government’s $12.4 million support package for the recycling industry and local government in response to China’s National Sword Policy.
Image courtesy Green Industries SA
‘Train the Trainer’ Program Targets Culturally Diverse Communities
In an innovative project initiated by the Multicultural Communities Council of SA (MCCSA), and funded by Green Industries SA, KESAB delivered training to community leaders from new and emerging organisations to enable them to deliver waste management workshops in their respective communities.
Due to its conversations on waste management with community leaders, MCCSA identified the need for an awareness campaign about the adverse effect of waste on health and the environment, and the benefits of recycling.
Some culturally diverse groups have no past waste management or recycling experience or knowledge of different recycling systems outside their country of origin.
Research has found that in areas where English language or proficiency is poor, culturally diverse groups prefer to find out about recycling and waste collection through existing community and cultural groups, and ideally from community leaders.
The pilot program consisted of four workshop sessions including a visit to the KESAB Wingfield Waste Management and Resource Recovery Education Centre and the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority (NAWMA) Material Recovery Facility.
Certificates of attendance were presented to 20 participants at the closing session by The Hon Jing Lee MLC, Assistant Minister for Cultural Affairs, representing The Hon David Speirs MP, Minister for Environment and Water.
The community leaders are transferring their knowledge in special presentations at community events. Subject to the learnings from the pilot project, the aim is to develop a program which can be rolled out cost-effectively in successive years.