Recycling gets green light

By Deanna Nott

AIR Force personnel in South Australia are leading the way in reducing landfill through an ingenious initiative that involves turning used printer and toner cartridges into park benches for needy community organisations.

Defence environmental officers Kael da Costa and Michael Treanor started promoting the recycling program to Adelaide’s defence establishments earlier this year and have already recycled enough waste to produce two park benches.

RAAF Base Edinburgh is supporting the initiative and has already returned boxes of cartridges for the recycling program.

The program, coordinated by local recycling company Go For Green, involves Defence personnel placing waste cartridges from photocopiers, facsimile machines and printers in large cardboard recycling stations at their offices.

The empty cartridges are then collected by Go For Green and taken to a recycling plant where they are sorted and recorded. Reward stickers, in the form of frogs, froglets and tadpoles are then sent to Mr Treanor and stuck on the Department of Defence’s frog poster.

Once a poster has 160 stickers on it, Go For Green presents Defence with a park bench made from recycled cartridges.

“Defence has made a big commitment to the environment generally, but I think waste management is one of the areas that hasn’t received much attention in the past,” said Mr Treanor.

“We thought this was an excellent initiative to be involved in because not only does it help reduce landfill, it also allows us, as the Defence community, to provide recycled products, like park benches, to needy groups.”

The Defence environmental officers plan to present their first two park benches to one of Adelaide’s hospitals in the near future.

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