CONTAINER COLLECTOR IN HEART OF BRISBANE
TOMRA Collection Services’ technology processes more than 40 billion containers annually across the globe, including as part of the NSW and Queensland schemes. When Queensland’s Containers for Change scheme launched in late 2018, TOMRA was faced with the challenge of establishing a Container Refund Point (CRP) in the inner city. The vigour with which TOMRA overcame the obstacles, and the success of the resulting facility, merited a position on the finalists’ podium in the 2019 Outstanding Metro Project Award.
While central Brisbane is naturally a hotspot for generating post-consumer beverage containers, given the amount of workers in the area, the challenge of establishing a CRP lay in sourcing commercial property with the appropriate zoning and footprint.
TOMRA set itself the target of sourcing such a site within 3km of the CBD. The establishment of a CRP at West End, an inner-city suburb just 2.4km from the centre of Brisbane, meant that TOMRA offered the only such facility within 10km of the CBD.
The site of the CRP is zoned for mixed use, while the facility itself is defined as light industrial. The disparity required TOMRA to put forward an Impact Assessable Development Application , triggering a thorough review of the plans for the site. The application was eventually approved just two days prior to the start date of the Containers for Change scheme, yet the team was up and running in time for the Environment Minister to officially launch the scheme on-site.
The well-positioned facility is located just 250 metres from the Brisbane River, and close to the Davies Park markets; a strategic location to capture foot traffic, reduce marine litter, and attract customers with large quantities of containers to return. In the first ten months of operation, TOMRA facilities in Queensland processed 185 million containers (of the 850 million that went through the scheme at large). The West End facility alone recovered almost 10 million, or about a million a month; making a significant contribution to the 35% drop in environmental litter that the scheme engendered.
The strong return rate indicates that the facility has been welcomed by the local community, with an on-site customer satisfaction kiosk showing that most visitors enjoy the experience (rating 4.5/5 on average). Significantly, 23% of customers state that their motivation to visit is environmental or related to litter reduction.
Our judges said TOMRA’s West End facility “has successfully achieved a phenomenal return rate which demonstrates its acceptance and value held by the city”. They noted the “highly admirable” pollution avoidance and public education benefits of the facility, and praised the project as “a case study for future facilities to use as a guide in which to succeed”.