Published on Friday, 4 November 2022 at 11:00:00 AM
National Recycling Week runs from Monday 7 to Sunday 13 November. A Planet Ark initiative, the week seeks to educate people on reducing, reusing and recycling to minimise waste sent to landfill.
To celebrate the week, we spoke to long-serving Coppin Road Community Recycling Centre Site Operator, Theo Keeris.
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Nestled amongst the back-drop of a tree-lined country road in the heart of Mundaring, is the Shire of Mundaring’s smallest but busiest Community Recycling Centre.
The Coppin Road Community Recycling Centre (CRC), is one of two transfer stations in the shire and boasts up to nine employees on any given day.
Team Leader, Theo Keeris, has worked at the site for 24 years. He said a typical day includes helping the public to safely dispose of their recyclable materials which staff will process to be reduced, reused, recovered or recycled.
“The CRC opens at 8am and our friendly staff are on site to help direct residents to the correct areas to drop off their recyclables,” he said.
“At the transfer station we have designated areas for dropping off household recyclable materials such as cardboard, plastics, green waste, metals, electronics and many more.”
Throughout the day, staff sort recyclable materials to be recovered or recycled into new materials and join the circular waste economy.
Mr Keeris said there is a misconception that everything ends up in landfill and isn’t recycled.
“Some people confuse the CRC for a tip. If they haven’t been here before they want to throw everything ‘over the wall’,” he said
“Items that end up ‘over the wall’ at Coppin Road are crushed down. Approximately 26.5 tonnes of landfill waste is sent to Red Hill Waste Management Facility per week.
“Recycled materials brought into the CRC are sorted and recovered or processed within Western Australia into new items.”
Mr Keeris encouraged residents to not feed landfill and instead visit one of the Shire’s CRCs to dispose of recyclable materials.
“The less we send to landfill the better it will be for residents in the long run,” he said.
“The more that goes to landfill that doesn’t easily break down, creates more greenhouse gasses in the environment.”
The Coppin Road Community Recycling Centre also boasts a Container Deposit Scheme refund point which is open every day except Wednesday.
Residents and community groups can bring eligible 150ml to 3L aluminium, glass, plastic, steel and liquid paperboard drink containers to be recycled for a 10c refund per bottle.
Since the scheme started at the CRC two years ago, a total of 8.4 million containers have been recycled.
2021/2022 recycling statistics
In the 2021/2022 financial year, the Shire recycled a total 1630.89 tonnes of material dropped off at the Coppin and Mathieson Community Recycling Centres.
Recyclable materials included household plastics, cardboard, glass, metals (including batteries), green waste, textiles, tyres and various hazardous goods including gas bottles, fluorescents, white goods, waste oil and e-waste.
Green waste, containers from the Container Deposit Scheme, metals and cardboards are some of most popular items recycled at Coppin Road.
In the last financial year, the Coppin Road CRC processed 445 tonnes of steel, 86.36 tonnes of cardboard, 26.03 tonnes of mattresses, and 20.1 tonnes of eWaste.
Also in the same year, Coppin Road and Mathieson Road CRCs processed approximately 9,000 tonnes combined of green waste which includes trees, grass and bushes.
Through the Shire’s recycling partner it was turned back into mulch to be used across the greater Perth region.
In June 2022, the Shire was named one of the top five Councils in the metropolitan area for electronic waste (eWaste) recycling, having recycled over 33,202kgs of eWaste in 2021.
When recycled at the CRC, the material is manually broken down and steel, copper, aluminium, precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium), plastic glass, wood and cardboard are recovered.
The Coppin Road and Mathieson Road Community Recycling Centres are also home to a ‘Grab n Go Reuse Shop’ which enables residents to access and donate household items in good condition for free.
Coppin Road and Mathieson Road Community Recycling Centres Opening Hours
To find out about opening hours, locations and entry passes and fees for the Community Recycling Centres and Container Deposit Scheme, visit the Community Recycling Centres page.
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