Great estate: North Melbourne the latest to start public housing recycling
Most public housing estates across Victoria don’t have recycling services. Built largely in the post-war years, the tall tower blocks have one central chute for rubbish, hundreds of households have no choice but to throw everything out to landfill and figuring out how to start recycling has been a tough challenge.
But several innovative local Councils are working with the Department of Human Services who manage Victoria’s public housing, to trial various recycling methods. Environment Victoria has been invited to partner on some of these projects, providing expertise in community engagement.
We’ve been working on a recycling pilot project in the Flemington public housing estate. We also added recycling outreach activities to the Carlton Eco Neighbourhood project, where recycling was built into the new environmentally sustainable buildings but the residents weren’t used to using it.
Environment Victoria’s latest foray into public housing recycling is in North Melbourne. Working in partnership with the City of Melbourne we’re managing the Recycle Now trial, which commenced in late 2012.
Recycle Now involves recycling bins being installed by City of Melbourne in two buildings on the North Melbourne estate, and us working together to add the human element – recruiting, training and mentoring local residents to help spread the word and encourage their neighbours to start recycling.
A group of 18 locals and students of the North Melbourne Language and Learning Centre, on the estate, completed a training course by Environment Victoria in December and became Recycle Champions. From diverse backgrounds, the Recycle Champions reflect the cultural and demographic profile of the North Melbourne estate. Our Champions speak Arabic, Amharic, Somali, Oromo, Tigrinya, Chinese, Vietnamese and English. They’ve made new friends and chosen partners to work with, door-knocking all 210 households involved in the trial, to deliver their crate they’ll use for recycling and to motivate them to take part.
“I have learnt that it is very serious and it’s very important issue to talk about recycling and the problems that we have … Take care about your things; it’s a big problem. We should help ourself to keep our environment clean.”
(North Melbourne Recycle Champion comment during training course)
We're off to a great start. City of Melbourne has installed 18 new 240L recycling bins in the trial buildings and residents have embraced the opportunity to start recycling. We’ll be monitoring the trial over the next few months and keep you updated here.
Contact us for more information.
UPDATE: RECYCLE CHAMPION IN THE NEWS!
We congratulate Recycle Now Recycle Champion Sultan for starring in the April edition of the City of Melbourne’s Melbourne News magazine!
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