Barry Craig from the Cowra recycling facility, says he’s seen almost everything turn up in recycling waste, including animals.
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Mr Craig and the team at the Cowra Shire Council’s recycling plant feature in a new campaign attempting to educate people about what to put in their recycling.
“We are human, and we’ve got to touch your recycling,” Mr Craig said.
“Take a little bit more care as to what goes in your recycling because we want to do our job and get all the recyclables out of the recycling.”
The new advertising campaign features local recycling facilities and their staff with the aim of giving residents a behind-the-scenes look at how recycling is sorted.
Staff at three NetWaste member council operated facilities share their stories in a bid to help the community to become better recyclers.
If you put rotten food, dirty nappies or hazardous waste in your recycling bin, we have to sort through that,” said Mid-Western Region Waste Facility Manager Tiffany.
NetWaste Environmental Learning Officer Sue Clarke says she’s thrilled to be able to launch the new campaign and hopes it will raise awareness of the issue of contamination in recyclables via a different perspective.
“I think we often put things in our recycling bin and don’t give it another thought.
“This campaign is all about helping those who have the job of sorting recycling. ‘Help Us Help You’ means everyone can do better when it comes to recycling,” she said.
One council employee featured, Stuart, tells the community he loves his job at the Gilgandra Waste Facility, but he hates it when garbage is mixed in with the recyclables.
“It’s not a robot that does this job, it’s actually people. When all the rubbish is mixed in, the lot ends up going into landfill. “I want to remind the community to put recycling in the recycling bins and garbage into garbage bins,” he said.