SYDNEY, Australia — A recycler aiming to take 11 million coffee cups and turn them into bench seats, kerbing and car parking stoppers just got a boost from the NSW Government.
“The next time your car hits a bump stop in a car park, you may well be ‘using’ recycled coffee cups,” Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said.
“Recycling coffee cups is high visibility issue we are working to resolve,” she said.
“The more coffee cups we recycle, the less that are littered – and that’s a good thing for everyone,” Ms Upton said.
Coffee cup recycler Closed Loop Environmental Solutions Pty Ltd will use $115,000 in NSW Government funding to expand its Simply Cups coffee cup recycling program.
“They aim to divert 110 tonnes, or approximately 11 million cups, from landfill within a year,” she said.
Simply Cups collects used coffee cups in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong from commercial buildings, caterers and 7-Eleven stores.
“Making useful products from waste or recyclable materials is one of the ways NSW is working to be ahead of the game in its response to China’s National Sword policy, which has effectively closed the Chinese market to Australia’s recyclable waste,” Minister Upton said.
“The Simply Cups program is one of several projects to benefit from the more than $510,000 awarded in this year’s Circulate grant program, with money also going to projects that: recycle plastic milk bottles, use mushroom biotechnology to divert textile waste from landfill; and a project researching the possibility of using paper mill waste to rehabilitate sulfidic mine dams.
In the past five years the NSW Government has awarded $407 million to over 1,160 projects that are now recycling 2.39 million tonnes of waste each year.
The Circulate grants are made through Waste Less, Recycle More; an $802 million NSW Government initiative to keep waste out of landfill, increase food and garden waste collections, boost business recycling and invest in new infrastructure.
For more information visit:
http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/working-together/grants/business-recycling/circulate-grant
