Passionate Qantas Club staff in Melbourne were committed to stopping packaging waste and wanted to make bottle disposal easier for staff.
The Melbourne Qantas Club lounge welcomes between 5000 and 7000 members each day.
When members want a beer, around 90 per cent choose to drink from a bottle rather than 'off tap'.
As a result, each day the Qantas Club ends up with thousands and thousands of empty bottles.
Despite the best efforts of bar staff to recycle waste, contamination and the restrictions of the recycling process, in some cases as little as 10 per cent of glass is recycled from the hospitality industry in Australia all up.
The remaining glass ends up in landfill.
Melbourne Qantas Club staff were aware that a large amount of packaging was passing through the doors and questioned where it was going.
Horrified that this vast amount of glass might be ending up in landfill, they decided to find a better way by taking a closer look at the way the beer is packaged.
Beer is generally sent in cardboard six packs, in cardboard slabs and each bottle has a cap.
Added to the waste from wine bottles, cordial containers and juice bottles, the amount of packaging being thrown away each day is substantial.
The Melbourne Qantas Club joined forces with the Qantas Property team to discover the ‘BottleCycler’, a machine which crushes bottles on site to a consistent size for recycling.
Further investigation led the team to an Australian first -a trial in Melbourne funded by the National Packaging Covenant and the Packaging Stewardship Forum, and supported by Melbourne City Council, which offered hospitality venues a free two-month trial to use the BottleCycler machine.
Qantas Club Lounge enthusiastically took up the offer and since August 2007, the BottleCycler machine at Qantas Club Lounge has processed more than 361,000 bottles or 72.2 tonnes.
This has resulted in 72,000 kilograms of glass diverted from landfill, contributing to an increase in glass recycling rates of 80 per cent, up from 10 per cent previously.
National Packaging Covenant CEO Ed Cordner, says the Melbourne Qantas Club's achievement is an excellent example of how the National Packaging Covenant works with companies to improve the environmental performance of packaging.
“The BottleCycler has reduced the amount of time required to dispose of the used bottles, is easy to use and allows staff at the Melbourne Qantas Club more time to be with their members,” Cordner says.
The Qantas Group is a National Packaging Covenant signatory* which means it signs and agrees to certain responsibilities intended to stop packaging ending up in landfill.
In Australia, more than 80% of all packaged retail brands sold are Covenant signatories - packing a powerful punch towards packaging sustainability.
Qantas intends to continue to work with their extensive network of suppliers to find solutions that will reduce the amount of packaging waste as a result of its operations and supports initiatives such as the ‘BottleCycler’.
The company commends the Melbourne Qantas Club and the Property Department on their efforts and drive to get the project up and running.
“When pubs were built 100 years ago, they were never designed to cope with the large number of empty glass bottles they face today,” Ed Cordner says.
“Glass bottles are generally thrown in tubs and lifted into large co-mingled recycling bins outside."
"Because of factors such as breakage and contamination, at the recycling plants smaller pieces can't be sorted, so they end up in landfill."
"The BottleCycler helps stop this occurring."
The National Packaging Covenant currently funds more than 50 projects across Australia with a total cost of $47 million, which identify better ways to recycle, reuse or stop packaging ending up in landfill.
These projects have the potential to divert 500,000 tonnes of consumer packaging from landfill.
For more information about the Covenant: www.packagingcovenant.org.au
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