The Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) says all of the country's largest shopping centre companies have now joined its campaign to promote away from home recycling program following the recent decision by Colonial First State Global Asset Management Property (CFSGAM-Property) to sign up to the program.
APC chief executive Stan Moore was joined by his counterpart at the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) Gary Dawson and the federal minister for the environment Greg Hunt last week to launch CFSGAM-Property's participation in the program last week at the QV Melbourne shopping centre.
QV Melbourne is the first of 29 CFSGAM-Property-managed shopping centres nationwide to join the recycling program, which installs waste and recycling bins in retail spaces to enable consumers to recycle away from home.
Other CFSGAM-Property assets in Victoria scheduled to join the program in coming months include Altona Gate Shopping Centre, Bayside Shopping Centre, Brimbank Central Shopping Centre, Broadmeadows Shopping Centre, Chadstone Shopping Centre, Corio Shopping Centre, DFO Essendon, DFO Moorabbin, DFO South Wharf, Northland Shopping Centre and Rosebud Plaza Shopping Centre.
The head of sustainability at CFSGAM-Property, Rowan Griffin, said 184 recycling bins would provide away from home recycling opportunities to around 280 million visitors to CFSGAM-Property-managed centres across Australia each year.
"As a responsible property investor, this initiative fits in with our best practice sustainability program by making it easier for customers to recycle in our centres, something they already do at home, while focusing on maximising efficiencies from within our assets," he said.
APC's Moore told PKN the agreement with CFSGAM-Property meant that all of the country's major shopping centre managers had now signed up to its Do the Right Thing, Use the Right Bin away from home recycling program.
"We now have all the big ones on board, which means we now have the experience on board to start bringing the smaller operators to the program now," he told PKN.
He said that while CFSGAM-Property was the last of the major shopping centre giants to sign-up, following such groups as Westfields and AMP, it was able to build on the expertise and experience gathered from those earlier participants.
"They have been able to spend a lot of time ensuring not just that the bins were in place, but that they had the back-end of the program set up properly in terms of contracts and agreements with cleaners, waste services and suppliers and waste collectors," Moore said.
The AFGC's Dawson congratulated CFSGAM-Property on its commitment to environmental sustainability.
"The new recycling system for QV shopping centre is a great example of the types of proactive programs the food and beverage industry is undertaking to address the issue of packaging product stewardship," he said.
