2023 WasteSorted Awards - Winners’ Stories

Winner: Repair Café Bassendean Inc

Established in 2018, Repair Café Bassendean provides regular, free repair services to the community by fixing people’s broken household items. Not only does this save items from landfill, it avoids the resource consumption associated with purchasing replacement items. The organisation expanded its services to include the Share Shed to provide community members with access to a range of useful communal items for their homes, gardens, projects or adventures. The Share Shed’s centralised inventory includes more than 400 loan items primarily from second-hand sources, in alignment with its ethos of reducing resource consumption.

Highly Commended: Bottle Top Hill

Highly Commended: Perth City Farm

Winner: South Coogee Primary School

South Coogee Primary follows a whole-school approach, implementing sustainable initiatives and promoting awareness of the impact communities have on their local and global environments. As part of the school’s Sustainable Action Plan, its current goal is to further decrease waste to landfill, increase paper and carbon recycling, and continue to teach students about waste avoidance, correct disposal and how sustainable actions need to be a way of life.

Highly Commended: Somerly Primary School

Winner: DevelopmentWA

DevelopmentWA is responsible for Subi East, the transformation of a 35 hectare area between Subiaco Oval and Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) which is one of the most significant redevelopment projects of its type in Perth. Not only has the project achieved 99.58 per cent total reuse and recycling, the retention of some structures and repurposing and donation of materials for societal benefit has gone above and beyond best practice. This makes it an exemplar of waste and resource recovery. The plan for PMH explored opportunities to include recycled and reused materials throughout the project’s development. The demolition process involved removing 59,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste including concrete, bricks, timber, metals, and medical office equipment, which is being reused, recycled or, with regards to office and medical equipment, donated to charity.

Highly commended: Total Green Recycling Pty Ltd

Highly Commended: South Metropolitan Health Service (SMHS)

Winner: Sam’s Spares

Sam’s Spares is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2022 by Samuel Thomas, a 19-year-old autistic man with Tourette syndrome. Sam’s work is unique in that he repairs and refurbishes donated technology and gives it free of charge to vulnerable members of the community. In the past year, 45.94 tonnes of e-waste was received, with 28.71 tonnes diverted from landfill and correctly recycled. More than 500 separate items have been given a second lease on life overseas, as well as 1,000 items given back to the community for free.

Highly Commended: Bottle Top Hill

Highly Commended: The Feelgood Fashionista

Winner: Esperance Care Services

Esperance Care Services (ECS) is an incorporated not-for-profit offering a multi-op-shop approach which provides initiatives responding to local needs and waste solutions. ECS processes about 160 tonnes of fabric and textiles, reusing, repurposing and recycling about 250 tonnes of clothing, furniture and household goods a year. This is then distributed back into the community through its social and benevolent enterprises. In the first four months of 2023 in comparison with 2022, ECS has seen a 64 per cent rise in emergency relief assists, appointed two advocates and had a $34,000 increase in revenue in the op shop.

Highly Commended: Boddington RRR

Winner: City of Fremantle

The City of Fremantle prides itself on responsible social, economic and environmental management. In 2009 it became WA’s first carbon-neutral city, and in September 2014 it was one of only two councils in Australia to achieve One Planet certification for sustainability. Its Fremantle Recycling Centre includes a household hazardous waste facility and a Reuse Shop, and conveniently neighbours the Fremantle Containers for Change refund point. The 3,000 m2 site provides a central drop-off point, and in 2021–22 received 750 tonnes and recovered 575 tonnes, a recovery rate of 77 per cent. Also in 2021–22, the Reuse Shop diverted 20 tonnes.

Highly Commended: East Metropolitan Regional Council

Winner: Shire of Northam

The Shire of Northam, within the Avon subregion of the WA Wheatbelt, operates two waste management facilities. The largest is at Old Quarry Road (Northam), with a smaller rural facility at Inkpen Road in Copley (Wundowie). Both facilities provide waste management services to the Shire’s residents and the surrounding area, including York, Cunderdin, Kellerberrin and Toodyay. The increase in recycling has resulted in 152,859 kg of waste being diverted from landfill.

Winner: City of Canning

The City of Canning Strategic Waste Team has engaged with the City’s Cultural Ambassadors since October 2022 to strengthen culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) community knowledge of correct waste sorting behaviours. In partnership with Curtin University and Multicultural Futures, the innovative and evidence-based Cultural Ambassadors Program was developed to break down the barriers preventing CaLD communities from accessing City information and services. By empowering the Ambassadors, they became waste champions in their community and a bridge between the CaLD residents and the City’s Waste Team. The Strategic Waste Team have participated in a variety of events organised by the Ambassadors, including festivals, school holiday programs, pop-up stalls and workshops.

Highly Commended: Town of East Fremantle

Winner: Veolia Recycling and Recovery

Veolia Recycling and Recover provides an end-to-end solution for household waste including collection, processing, composting and disposal. It has a critical role and interest in ensuring recycling and organics collected at the kerbside are contaminant free, especially when they are being processed at its facilities. A clean feedstock into its Material Recovery Facility and Composting Facility secures viable end-markets and drives the circular economy. When kerbside bins are collected and emptied, real-time feedback on contamination is provided to the customer service centre. A letter to the resident is automatically generated, reviewed and posted withing 24 hours. The use of artificial intelligence is an innovative way to provide solutions and improve recycling and FOGO collection systems.

Highly Commended: Mash Brewing

Winner: Ashburton Aboriginal Corporation

Formed in 2000, Ashburton Aboriginal Corporation (AAC) promotes the interests of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people in the Shire of Ashburton. AAC has introduced two components, Yurrama Water and Containers for Change. Their aim is to provide an employment pathway to jobseekers and reduce waste going into landfill, collecting and recycling containers, reusing them to bottle the water and continuing this cycle. Yurrama is registered as a First Response Supplier, and on average it sells 500,000 containers a month.

Highly Commended: Donut Waste

Winner: Veolia Recycling and Recovery

Veolia Recycling and Recover provides an end-to-end solution for household waste including collection, processing, composting and disposal. It has a critical role and interest in ensuring recycling and organics collected at the kerbside are contaminant free, especially when they are being processed at its facilities. A clean feedstock into its Material Recovery Facility and Composting Facility secures viable end-markets and drives the circular economy. When kerbside bins are collected and emptied, real-time feedback on contamination is provided to the customer service centre. A letter to the resident is automatically generated, reviewed and posted withing 24 hours. The use of artificial intelligence is an innovative way to provide solutions and improve recycling and FOGO collection systems.