Even though Australians have embraced recycling there are still common questions that come up regularly. What are the biggest mistakes? How do we make recycling at work, work? What is the future of recycling?
Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week, now in its 20th year, is the right time to get the answers to these and the other big questions from our new research.
The Biggest Mistakes
We asked 115 councils around Australia what the biggest recycling mistake was. Nine out of ten agreed that putting recycling in plastic bags was the biggest mistake. Coming in second was residents putting recyclables in the general waste. The third most common mistake was placing items in the kerbside recycling bin with too much food waste attached.
Make Recycling at Work, Work
This year we highlight the benefits to businesses of recycling including:
- Staff feel that they work for a responsible employer if they recycle
- Happy employees correlates with positive firm performance
- Businesses embracing ‘green’ mandates have an increased ability to recruit and retain good employees
- Selecting the right bin, balers and other equipment can help ensure contamination is minimized and the recycling industry can extract the full environmental and financial benefits from the material
The Future of Recycling
There are a number of drivers that will affect the future of recycling. These include:
- Waste increasing with a growing population
- More people wanting to recycle
- More manufacturers taking responsibility
- Increasing public and private investment in recycling
- Increasing awareness about the dangers of waste
- Decreasing resource availability
- Financial incentives like Container Deposit Schemes
The Full Report
Get more answers by downloading the full All Sorted – Answering the Big Recycling Questions report.