Keep Australia Beautiful

Keep Australia Beautiful week kicks off on Monday 23 August and with over 11 billion beverage containers being consumed in Australia each year, Keep Australia Beautiful is calling on local councils and the public to help lift the recycling rate of beverage containers to reduce landfill waste.

According to Keep Australia Beautiful, Australian households that have access to kerbside recycling are recycling around 70% of their empty beverage containers at home. Yet this figure drops to just 22% when people are away from home.

"With so many people buying food and drink when they're out and about these days, we are seeing more waste being produced, but with very little of it being recycled, says KAB spokeswoman, Lara Shannon. "This means more litter on our streets and products ending up in landfill that don't need to be there."

This not only has a negative effect on the environment, but also has a big financial cost. Each year, local councils spend around $200 million (1) nationally to clean up our litter, whilst the cost of sending waste to landfill continues to rise.

"Fortunately, many councils, venues and businesses are introducing public place recycling bins, so it's up to us all to do our bit and start recycling empty drink bottles and cans rather than throwing them in the rubbish bin", Shannon added.

During KAB Week, Hungry Jack's restaurants nationally will be encouraging their customers to recycle. Selected restaurants in each state and territory will be introducing beverage container recycling trials to enable their customers and the general public to recycle their empty bottles and cans when they are out and about.

Keep Australia Beautiful is also hoping local councils will get involved by promoting local initiatives that are helping to increase the recycling rate of empty bottles and cans.

"Keep Australia Beautiful Week is an ideal time to promote local recycling facilities and create greater awareness amongst residents, so they can start recycling their empty drink bottles and cans rather than throwing them in the rubbish bin", Shannon said.

Celebrity ambassadors helping to promote the KAB Week campaign include Getaway's Jules Lund and Natalie Gruzlewski, Hey Hey It's Saturday's Livinia Nixon and Suze Raymond, cricket great Glenn McGrath and others.

KAB Week Ambassador, Jules Lund, said, "Keep Australia Beautiful Week is the perfect time to think about the impact our lifestyle and behaviour has on the environment and set some goals to reduce our eco footprint all year round. Reducing the amount of rubbish we throw away by reusing or recycling it instead is an easy way to start."

For further information about the campaign, what you can recycle in your local area and other recycling tips, visit www.kab.org.au.

Beverage Container Consumption & Recycling

(2) Australians have consumed over 11 billion containers in the last year with 512,000 tonnes of containers ending up in landfill.
• Glass - 35% (3.8 billion)
• Aluminium - 28% (3.2 billion)
• PET plastic - 24% (2.6 billion)
• HDPE bottles - 13% (1.4 billion)
• Steel Cans (69 million)

(1) Around 90% of households have access to kerbside recycling, with an average of 70% of the beverage containers we use at home being recycled. The recycling rate breakdown is:
• Glass - 56%
• Aluminium - 83%
• PET plastic - 69%

The challenge for beverage container recycling comes when people are out and about with an average recycling rate of around 22%.
• Glass - 17%
• Aluminium - 31%
• PET plastic - 17%

Quick Facts (3)
• Recycling 1 aluminium can saves 3 litres of water, 187 grams of carbon and energy to boil 30 cups of tea.
• Recycling 1 glass bottle saves 400ml of water, 83g of carbon and enough energy to boil water for 11 cups of tea.
• 41 recycled plastic bottles represent enough energy savings to run a refrigerator for an hour. To run for a month it requires a tonne of plastics to be recycled.

(1) Australian Food & Grocery Council
(2) Australian Beverage Packaging Consumption, Recovery and Recycling Quantification Study - Hyder Consulting Pty Ltd
(3) www.lgsa-plus.net