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Now in its 27th year, National Recycling Week (7 to 13 November) provides an important opportunity to improve recycling knowledge, develop better recycling habits and build greater trust in the recycling process.
It's simple, everyday actions like recycling, which help to protect the Tweed's internationally significant environment for future generations.
Council's Resource Recovery Education Officer Dominique Pomeroy said National Recycling Week provided a great opportunity for us all to consider our recycling habits.
"It's important for us to think about how we can send less to landfill, reuse items and choose products with recycled content to ensure our recycled products are valuable," Ms Pomeroy said.
"We often hear people say: 'Why worry what you put in the recycling bin anyway, it just goes to landfill'. However, this is just not true – it is being recycled. Your items are being turned into different and new products such as plastic industrial pallets, geo-matting for embankments, piping, paper, cardboard, new glass jars, bottles and more."
To see how the Tweed's recycling material is processed, Council has produced a video demonstrating the process at our Chinderah recycling facility.
As part of the week's activities, Council together with our partner North East Waste, is encouraging residents to continue their efforts to recycle right, and to think beyond their kerbside bins.
"As a region, the Northern Rivers is tracking well above the state average, with a 59% recovery rate from our kerbside recycling and organics bins," said Linda Tohver, Education Coordinator at North East Waste.
"It's also becoming easier to recycle more than just the usual paper, cardboard, glass, hard plastics, and steel and aluminium cans that belong in our yellow-lid recycling bins due to the Australasian Recycling Label Program."
The Australasian Recycling Label Program has made the process of identifying what can be recycled easier. Keep an eye out for the instruction labels on common household items that show which bin each component of the packaging can go into as well as where recycling can occur in-store.
The Waste Wizard on Council's website can also help residents determine 'what goes where'.
Top tips for recycling beyond your kerbside bin:
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Return and Earn – currently accepts drink containers such as cans, beer and mixer bottles, cartons, juice boxes and poppers. In 2023 this will expand to include larger soft drink and juice bottles and wine bottles.
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Household and car batteries, paints, oils, gas bottles and fluoro globes and tubes and smoke detectors are accepted for free at the Community Recycling Centre (CRC) at Stotts Creek Resource Recovery Centre.
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Various take-back schemes through Terracycle.com are now in place for a variety of beauty, self-care and dental products.
