As a partner of Scipher Technologies, Maroondah City Council recently took some time to discover the full process that goes into recycling municipal e-waste.
Members of the waste team got in touch with their hard rubbish collection service provider Cleanaway, who worked with Scipher to organise a tour at our Melbourne facility.
It can be difficult to fully understand what happens to waste once it leaves its collection point, which can often lead to confusion around the recycling process. Louise Donaghey, the Waste Management and Education Team Leader at Maroondah stated, “we wanted to see how the system worked with the connection between contractor and recycler”
By getting a first-hand view into the full procedure, Louise and the team can have confidence in their council’s services in providing environmentally responsible recycling of electronic equipment. Furthermore, they can take their learnings from the tour and use it to create clearer messaging about using the council’s e-waste services.
Maroondah Council runs two collection events specifically for e-waste twice a year with Scipher offering recycling and logistic services. As they lead into another collection day in the coming months, the team were looking to gain a better understanding about what actually happens to the mass of items that get sent away for recycling.
The visitors were invited to walk through the full procedure at Scipher, from dispatch right through to the final outputs. They were able to observe how our technology drives the outcomes that we can achieve, and how our systems align with our values in trying to keep valuable materials in the economy rather than landfill.
Louise noted that it was a “great insight to see a well-functioning setup,” and that “anyone interested in waste will find it really interesting.”
We also got to demonstrate how our partnership with Cleanaway connects the waste from community to recycler.
Cleanaway’s Municipal Operations Coordinator Ryan Isles presented how Maroondah’s e-waste is effectively separated from other hard rubbish items to achieve a high transfer rate for collection to recycling. The more organised the collectors can be at the point of pick-up, the less items are sent to landfill, which is an outcome that all three partners are striving towards.
Council-led collection days are a great way for local governments to increase recycling education, not only for electronic waste, but other challenging items that aren’t widely accepted in curb-side recycling. It gives ratepayers the opportunity to learn through having conversations about recycling and share that knowledge with their families and network.
