Reuse Immersive – Reverse Garbage, Salvos and King Cotton
Charitable Recycling Australia hosted a reuse immersive on Wednesday 2 November with 50 key government policy makers and council stakeholders attending the Monash University presentation on the headline findings from the ARC Research on Measuring the Benefits of Reuse in the Circular Economy.
Most also attended the site tours at Reverse Garbage, Salvos Stores and King Cotton for a deep operational dive into the reuse operations at a charity, a social enterprise and a commercial reuse facility for a sector-wide educational. Delegates shared how impressed they were with the efficacy of the reuse operations with its 86% Resource Recovery Rate … although quite a few also wandered off to the retail areas to do some op shopping (which is just fine).
Delegates were treated to an enjoyable day and an education on the huge environmental, economic and social benefits of reuse – which sits at the top of the waste hierarchy as a best and highest use intervention but remains largely unrecognised in government policy interventions and unfunded, with most government funding only focusing on lower level interventions such as recycling and resource recovery.
Interestingly in Europe, it’s not just Environment departments that embrace reuse. European Government Employment departments actively fund reuse as it is a great economic and job creation activator – creating 10-20x as many jobs compared to recycling alone.
Charitable Recycling Australia’s Reuse Immersive was designed to help Australian governments embrace reuse and accelerate towards the Circular Economy through faster progress towards their own targets as well as other clear benefits:
- CO2 Reductions
- Landfill Reduction
- Economic Growth
- Job Creation
- Social Welfare
- Engagement with the Next Generations
This event marks the commencement of the evidence base and advocacy campaign from Charitable Recycling Australia to get reuse, repair and other higher level waste hierarchy interventions integrated into government policies.
Check out the video and photos from this event below.
