Recycling awareness campaign commences

ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Katy Gallagher, today announced that a recycling awareness campaign will commence this week running across local radio, print, Facebook and back of bus advertising.

"Canberrans are known as great recyclers, however there is obviously still some room for improvement," the Chief Minister said.

"Some 5.1% of items placed in household recycling bins are not recyclable and 12.8% of the household rubbish dumped at landfill could have been recycled.

"An awareness campaign commences this week targeting problematic issues:

• putting recycling in plastic bags means it will go to landfill
• do not dispose of food or green waste in recycling bins
• extra household recycling bins can be ordered from Canberra Connect for around $1 per week."

An online video tour of the Material Recovery Facility is also now available from http://www.tams.act.gov.au/ to help educate people about the recycling process

"The six minute video has been produced to give Canberrans a behind the scenes look at what happens to their recycling and how it is sorted into six different streams - paper, cardboard, plastics, steel, glass and aluminium - and then baled.

"The video will also be shown in Canberra Connect Shopfronts as part of making people aware of how our recycling processes work.

"By educating ACT residents about recycling we hope to further reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, while also reducing the contamination issues that we are finding in household recycling," the Chief Minister concluded.