Recycling Hub

Eye Glasses

Repurposed by Lions Club Australia.

Lions Recycle for Sight Australia is part of the Lions Clubs International Worldwide Eyeglass Recycling Program, headquartered in Queensland and operating throughout Australia and overseas.

The Lions Club Australia receive requests from humanitarian organisations either travelling to a developing country or supplying shipping container loads of suitable humanitarian aid from Australia to groups in the these countries.

Over the 26 years that the Australian program has operated, the program, has delivered over 7 million pair of refurbished quality spectacles to men, women and children in need in Africa, Europe, Middle East, Indian Sub- continent, East Asia, and the Far East, China, the countries of the Pacific Rim and Southern Asia and Oceania.

Mobile Phones

Recycled by MobileMuster

MobileMuster is the product stewardship program of the mobile phone industry and is accredited by the federal government. It is voluntarily funded by all of the major handset manufacturers and network carriers to provide a free mobile phone recycling program in Australia to the highest environmental standard. The program is committed to raising awareness and educating the community on why it is important to recycle mobile phones.

• Did you know that there are over 23 million unused mobile phones in people's homes in Australia? It is estimated that only 12% of mobile phones are recycled.
• If you had a million mobile phones you could recover 30kgs of gold ($198K), 300kg ($230K) of silver and over 10,000kgs ($50K) of copper?
• Tokyo 2020 Olympics is making 5,000 Gold, Silver & Bronze medals from mobile phones and electronic waste.

Batteries

Recycled by Ecocycle

Australians drain the life from more than 400 million batteries each year. Less than 5% are recycled, and our consumption of batteries is increasing year to year.

When dumped in landfill, batteries can leak a range of toxic substances, including lead, mercury and cadmium, into the environment.

Small E-waste

Recycled by TechCollect

E-waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world, yet in Australia, only approximately 35% of this material is being recycled. This is disappointing given the impact of e-waste on the environment and the fact that 95-98% of the valuable materials from e-waste items, such as televisions and computers, can be recovered and reused in the manufacture of new items.

Most consumers are unaware that when electronic goods are purchased, a certain amount of the purchase price ($/kg) is set aside and distributed to co-regulatory organisations to manage and recycle these electronic items responsibly at the end of the item's life.

Printer Cartridges

Recycled by Planet Ark

Printer cartridges are made up of a complex mix of plastics, metal, inks and toners and thus represent a significant investment in resources. When they are disposed of into landfill these resources are lost and influence negatively on our environment. That's why Planet Ark joined with Close the Loop® and the participating manufacturers to set up the innovative Cartridges 4 Planet Ark program.

X-Rays

Recycled by Ecocycle 

Recycling of silver occurs within the company using an electrolytic process. Films are placed in a chemical bath that dissolves the silver-containing imaging layer.

When an electric current is passed through the solution pure metallic silver is deposited on one of the electrodes. The backing film that gives X-rays their strength is made from a plastic similar to the type used in soft drink and fruit juice bottles.

It goes into a commodity plastic recycling stream and could end up in products ranging from shampoo bottles to polyester fleece clothing.

CD'S & DVD's

Recycled by Ecocycle 

The CD's & DVD's are shredded to separate the aluminium and the polycarbonate which are both used for further manufacturing. Same processing as used for e-waste material recovery

Oral Care Products

Recycled by Terracycle 

Once collected, the tubes and brushes are separated by composition, shredded and melted into hard plastic that can be remoulded to make new recycled products.

Bread Tags

Recycled by Aussie Bread Tags

Aussie Brad Tags have been collecting bread tags nationally in Australia since September 2018 and now have more than 100 collection points across the country. In February 2019, they started local recycling through the Transmutation - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle program in Robe, SA. This program allows bread tags to be recycled into products such as door knobs and bowls.

Aluminium Coffee Pods

Recycled by Nespresso

Nespresso aluminium coffee capsules that are recycled with Nespresso are sent to a specialist recycling plant based in Nowra, NSW. There, the aluminium is separated from the residual coffee. The coffee is sent to an industrial composting facility to be transformed into compost, while the aluminium is recycled and sent back to the aluminium industry to produce new aluminium products.