OzGREEN

OzGREEN, a community-driven, sustainability not-for-profit organisation, developed and put in place the Rethink program. This was to provide education around waste and single-use plastics at events and to role model the effective management of waste streams. The program reached new audiences for OzGREEN, including a broad cross section of the community through interactions and conversations around plastic and waste at our bin stations. Event managers were eager to have them at their events and help with waste management where waste to landfill was dramatically reduced.

In the lead up to events, the Rethink team provided waste advice and single-use plastic information for event management and food vendors. Bin stations were monitored at these events with waste, recycling and composting options available. More than 2,200 indivuduals engaged in meaningful conversations about the phase out of single-use plastics and the importance of reducing landfill. After conversations at the bins these attendees chose to separate their waste instead of sending it all to landfill. Vendors were also engaged during these events so that they were aware of the bans and alternatives to single-use plastics.

At the Bellingen Show, OzGREEN saw 1,660 L of compostable materials diverted from landfill, which was roughly a 25% reduction in waste.

As a result of the engagement during the events, OzGREEN observed people recognising and acknowledging the need to move away from single use plastics, people making pledges to minimise or eliminate single use plastic from their lives and nominating items in their survey that they would start using instead of banned items. Fortunately, other organisaions have noticed the great impacts of this program and OzGREEN has been asked to attend many other events to help with reducing and sorting waste.