Cleanaway to receive $25,000 in grants

23/12/98

Western Australian waste management company, Cleanaway, will receive $25,000 to assist its school recycling education program.

Environment Minister Cheryl Edwardes today announced grants of nearly $1 million for 35 projects from the Waste Management and Recycling Fund.

Western Australia's first environmental fund is financed by a landfill levy which came into force on July 1 this year and is used to sponsor innovative recycling and waste reduction projects throughout the State.

Cleanaway has been running a successful 'Recycling Education Program for Schools' since 1995, targeting recyclables and greenwaste recycling.

At no cost to schools, it is the only program of its kind where schools are visited and each classroom participates in discussion on recycling and associated benefits to the environment.

Cleanaway supplies schools with free recycling bins and instructions on how to set up recycling programs.

Since the program began, 130,000 school children - 98 schools in the Perth metropolitan area - have received recycling education.

More than 58 schools from all over WA have visited Cleanaway's Materials Recovery Facility in Bayswater.

The success of the program is not only that the schools get involved in recycling programs but children take important messages home, assisting waste reduction targets.

With the expansion of the program into three new council areas and the demands from the existing council areas and schools, the program needed another school visit officer.

The grant of $25,000 was provided from the Waste Management and Recycling Fund's public education and promotion category and will assist Cleanaway in the employment of a second education schools officer.

Mrs Edwardes congratulated the successful applicants who will share in $915,316 of Waste Management and Recycling Fund grants. This round of grants brings the total amount of funding provided this year to nearly $1 million.

"Each year, an expected $4 million raised from the levy will provide financial assistance to local communities, industry and local government with new and innovative ideas on reducing or recycling all types of waste," she said.

"I believe this fund is an incentive to Western Australians who are dedicated to recycling and waste reduction. It will help provide the impetus to reduce the State's waste by half.

"The quality of the applications received by the Advisory Council on Waste Management supports this. Generally grants are made on a dollar-for-dollar basis."

The Advisory Council selected 35 successful grant applicants in the following six categories:

·      waste classification and information;

·      regional recycling;

·      cleaner production and industrial waste reduction;

·      recycling and waste processing industry development;

·      public education and promotion ; and -

·      State co-ordination of local government recycling and waste reduction.

An additional category, municipal recycling services, will be included in the 1999 funding grants. This will provide a performance based incentive to support local government kerbside collection systems.

The levy applies to landfill sites in the Perth metropolitan area and is costed at $3 per tonne for domestic and commercial waste going to putrescible landfill and $1 per tonne for inert waste from the building and construction industry going to inert landfill. It is paid by all those who generate waste and use landfill sites.

Grant applications are invited every six months. The next grants round will be advertised on January 9 and will be open for a six-week application period. Application forms and details are available from the DEP by telephoning (08) 9476 7407.

Media contact: Nicole Trigwell 9421 7777