Albury sports clubs tackle soft plastics head-on

The soft plastics were collected as part of Clean Up Australia’s Greening the Green program, a partnership between PepsiCo and Clean Up Australia that helps local sporting facilities improve their existing waste management.

Albury City Council nominated the two local clubs – North Albury Football Netball Club (NAFNC) and Melrose Football Club – to participate in the program, which alongside Council supports sporting clubs and facilities to complete an online education program, create an Action Plan, and collect and recycle soft plastics.

At the end of the program, any participating clubs receive free equipment made entirely from recycled soft plastics!

Ashlee Bowen, Riverina Waste Group Regional Coordinator at Albury City Council, said that although Council had always had innovative and sustainable solutions to waste management, soft plastic recycling was “an area that needed to be explored further”.

The Albury sports clubs were provided with a collection stand and bags, signage and social media content to get them started.

Council also helped them fill out the paperwork associated with the campaign and picked up soft plastics regularly from the participating clubs.

Ashlee said that the two clubs went about collecting the soft plastics in different ways.

After all, there are a world of options when it comes to recycling.

Melrose Football Club encouraged their players to collect soft plastics at home and bring them in on game days or home games.

NAFNC mostly collected soft plastics from their canteen and kitchen.

Overall, 180kgs of soft plastic were collected between May and August 2021.

The soft plastic was taken to local recycler, Plastic Forests for processing and remanufacturing into new products such as fence posts and garden beds.

Each participating club also received a bench from REPLAS made from recycled soft plastic, which Ashlee described as “a fantastic conversation starter about the Greening the Green program and the circular economy”.

“The results and learnings will be used to engage with other sporting clubs across the Riverina and Murray region, to implement soft plastics recycling at their facilities, and also help them to reduce their reliance on soft plastics through improved purchasing habits,” Ashlee added.

“We are thankful that these clubs had the opportunity to participate in such a worthwhile program.”

By Lucia Moon