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SMRC ENewsletter

E-Waste collection day for City of Melville Residents
With Australians among the highest users of technology, e-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste. To reduce the amount sent to landfill, City of Melville residents are invited to dispose of their unwanted electronic goods at an e-waste collection day on Sunday, 3 April 2016.

The collection will be held at the City’s Operations Centre in Murdoch, offering the safe disposal of disused electronic goods such as computers, printers, TV’s, mobile phones and other devices.

City of Melville Mayor Russell Aubrey, said the safe disposal of e-waste was an increasingly important issue as the consumption of electronic goods continued to rise.

“With the growing amount of e-waste generated, it is vital we all take responsibility to dispose of it correctly to avoid unnecessary landfill. At the City’s Operations Centre the waste is sorted and where possible, materials are recovered and recycled.”

Electronic goods often contain hazardous substances, older televisions that contain Cathode RayTubes (CRT) can contain more than 2 kilograms of lead, while newer flat screen televisions contain less lead they have higher levels of mercury.

“Unfortunately electronic waste components are known to contain contaminants such as lead or flame retardants, and if not disposed of correctly pose a significant risk to people and the environment if exposed to leaking materials,” said Mayor Aubrey.

“We encourage all Melville residents to take advantage of this collection day to dispose of unwanted electronic goods responsibly and help reduce our environmental footprint.”

The e-waste collection day event will be held on Sunday, 3 April 2016, at the City of Melville Operations Centre, Bramanti Road, Murdoch between the hours of 9.00am to 1.00pm.

As the collection is strictly for City of Melville residents only, proof of residency such as a rates notice or driver’s licence will be requested on the day.

For more information visit melvillecity.com.au/communityevents or call 1300 635 845 or 9364 0666.

Bulk Verge Collections

Green Waste collection in the City of Fremantle

Green waste collections commence in the City of Fremantle on the 4th of April through to the 11th of April. Click here to find your collection area is or call 9432 9666 for more information.
 

Green Waste collection in the City of Cockburn

Green waste collections commence in the City of Cockburn on the 11th of April through to the 22nd of June. Click here to find your collection area is or call 9411 3444 for more information.
 

Green Waste collection in the City of Melville

Green waste collections commence in the City of Melville commence on the 28th of March through to the 13th of June. Click here to find your collection area is or call 9364 0666 for more information.

Compost in May
Every year the average Australian household throws out 345kg of food waste1 – that’s the same weight as 3 average sized fridges. When this waste ends up being buried in landfill, it creates methane that has the potential to add to problems with the enhanced greenhouse effect that’s happening to our atmosphere. However, the SMRC has a solution.

The Waste Composting Facility uses state of the art industrial composting technology to recover organic waste that is largely comprised of food and turn it into a nutrient rich compost that can be used in agriculture to replace lost nutrients and replenish the soil.

To see for yourself how this compost is made, why not come on a tour of the Regional Resource Recovery Centre. All tour participants that come on a tour during May can enter the draw to win a cubic metre of compost, thanks to our compost partner NutraRich.



To book, contact the Tours Coordinator on 9256 9528 or tours@smrc.com.au. Hurry, spaces are limited.

1. www.foodwise.com.au/

Problem Waste...

EPIRBS – Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacons
An EPIRB is an emergency position indicating radio beacon that transmits a signal to a family of dedicated satellites for re-transmitting to ground stations for alerting search and rescue authorities.

Incorrect disposal of your EPIRB, such as putting it in your kerbside bins can cause the device to be activated, and an unnecessary emergency callout may occur. When these devices are activated after being disposed of incorrectly, thousands of dollars and personnel hours are wasted searching through waste facilities and landfills.
In some instances, you can have the batteries replaced and your beacon serviced, avoiding the need for disposal? Where this isn’t possible, EPIRB’s can be taken to one of many drop off points around Perth. For more information about EPIRB disposal, download the Recycle Right app from your app store.

Sources: beacons.amsa.gov.au/; www.transport.wa.gov.au/imarine/epirbs.asp

New Virtual Tours
Recycle Right are pleased to announce that you can now watch virtual tour videos of the SMRC’s Waste Composting, Green Waste and Materials Recovery Facilities.

These videos have been developed with the support of the Waste Authority of WA, through the waste avoidance and resource recovery account.

You may not be able to attend a tour personally due to time or accessibility constraints, so please click below and enjoy learning all about our amazing recycling facilities.

recycleright.wa.gov.au/virtual-tours/

App Promo Video
Sarah from the Communications Team is always busy doing fantastic work, and here is just one of her latest masterpieces. A promo video for the Recycle Right app. The app is free from your app store.

Watch it here: recycleright.wa.gov.au/download-our-app/

Making Giving Count – GIV.org.au
GIV.org.au is a charitable partnership between Anglicare WA, Good Samaritans Industries, Spine and Limb foundation and St Vincent de Paul Society to reduce waste and make every donation count.

Each year it costs charities $312,000 to remove items left outside donation stations.
Donations left outside a charitable donation station, even if of good quality, will almost certainly be damaged by vandals or weather and have to be removed by charities and disposed of, both at their cost.

Goods left outside charitable donation stations are the source of complaints from members of the public, shopping centre strata managers, and council authorities and ultimately result in the removal of bins, which impacts charities in lost revenue from the sale of donations.

If something is of such a size that it cannot fit through the donation chute then it can’t be donated through a charity drop box. Some charities offer free home pickups of furniture or other items that are too large for donation through the chutes.

To give your things to charity, visit the website and use the tools to find locations and guidelines for donation. You can also find advice on what to do with items that cannot be given to charity.

Visit GIV.org.au

Nappy Know-It-Alls

Single-use nappies have a number of negative environmental impacts in relation to resource use and disposal. In addition, nappies being placed incorrectly in the yellow bin has been causing problems at the RRRC Materials Recovery Facility.

On Wednesday 16th March, the City of Cockburn’s Environmental Services staff ran a stall at the City’s Hello Baby! event down at Manning Park to get the community thinking and talking nappies!

Parents were asked to complete a small quiz to test their knowledge on the impact of single-use nappies and disposal issues and were then provided with a good quality reusable nappy (or reusable swim nappy) for bub.

Generally, all the mums and dads responded very positively to the idea of trying reusable nappies for their little ones, and many were already using. 

When completing the quiz, a majority underestimated the number of single-use nappies a child would use over the nappy wearing period with most guessing about 3000, when in fact statistical estimates steer closer to 8000.

A majority of those completing the quiz also guessed that nappies would take 50 – 100 years to break down, when actually it can take 500+.

The event offered a great opportunity to get the community to think a bit more about their baby’s ecological bum print!

Less Litter Saves Lizards' Lives
Not only does litter look ugly, it poses serious problems to the animals that share our environment. This little blue tongue lizard was recently rescued by the staff at Kanyana Wildlife in Lesmurdie, but not all animals are so lucky.

A whopping 84% of litter that was picked up in 2015 consisted of recyclable materials!1 That’s things like aluminium cans, plastic bottles, metal bottle caps, plastic bags, magazines and newspapers. These items could have been recovered and turned into new products, but after being carelessly discarded, their final destination is, more often than not, a landfill.

If you’re interested in helping to Keep Australia Beautiful, you can sign up to be a Litter Reporter. The Litter Report Scheme allows registered Litter Reporters to report littering or dumping of matter from a car, trailer or boat. For more information, visit www.kabc.wa.gov.au/report-littering or download the Litter Report App from the App Store or Google Play and easily report littering from vehicles.

1. Keep Australia Beautiful 2015 Rubbish Report- Western Australia

DID YOU KNOW... Good Samaritan MEGABARN


The Good Samaritan Industries have opened a MEGABARN in Canning Vale.

There are thousands of kilos of recycled stock for sale. Clothing is only $6 per kilo!

For sale are Clothing Bric-a-Brac and Furniture. Call into 33-35 Bannister Road, Canning Vale.

Easter Egg Wrappers
The Easter Bunny has been and gone, but what about all those wrappers. They’re made of aluminium, so surely they can go in the recycling bin right?

Unfortunately, the small foil balls are just too small to be recovered by Materials Recovery Facilities. But there’s something you can do to help. By packing those pieces of foil into balls the size of tennis ball, your aluminium can now be recovered, and might come back as a new aluminium can or more Easter Egg wrappers for next year!

Recycle Right Visits

In March, Education Officer Emma Baker has been busy visiting local primary and high schools.  

The Year 7 Science students at John Curtin College of the Arts in Fremantle enjoyed a presentation on the workings of the Regional Resource Recycling Centre (RRRC) in Canning Vale. This supported student learning in the Earth and Space Science as part of the Western Australian Curriculum, as well as giving students the chance to apply their learning to real-world experiences. Students then used their developing knowledge of resources and sustainability to make crafts from recycled materials.

As part of the presentation, Emma was able to address many misconceptions about where household rubbish ends up and students were able to ask hard hitting questions, such as why you should rinse your containers and take those lids off.

Many junior primary classes at Success Primary School got to see what happens to their recycling and put their knowledge to the test in the Race to Recycle Right. They even got to get up close with the compost that is made from organic waste placed in their green general waste bins. The Pre-Primary kids were still talking about what they had learned a week later.

To find out about how to organise a visit from Recycle Right to your school or community group, visit recycleright.wa.gov.au.

Geography students visit the Regional Resource Recovery Centre


John Calvin College Year 12 Geography students kicked off their two-day Field Trip by visiting the Regional Resource Recovery Centre this March. Teacher Phil Houweling, who brings his class to the Centre every year, finds that bringing his students to see the facilities not only helps meet curriculum objectives, it is also highly relevant for proper waste disposal practices in the home. “The tour guide is highly professional and clear. She did an amazing job of explaining the important issues relating to waste and landfill. The information regarding the negative impacts of landfill tied into my course objectives very well. My students will access the Recycle Right website to complete their research questions. Thank you very much for a great tour.”

To find out how a visit to the RRRC meets curriculum objectives or to organise a tour of the facilities, contact Emma on 9256 9528 or via email at tours@smrc.com.au.
RRRC Tour Dates...
 

The next community tour dates open to families and individuals are:

• Monday 11 April 2016

• Saturday 16 April 2016

Other dates can be arranged for groups. To discuss your tour requirements, please contact Emma Baker on: 9256 9528 or tours@smrc.com.au
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