35,000 Glass Bottles Recycled At 11 Morefm Winery Shows

After 11 shows in this year’s MOREFM Winery Tour, the Glass Packaging Forum has collected the equivalent of 13,000 wine bottles and 22,500 beer bottles from around 20,000 people. These glass bottles will be recycled into new glass containers by the Auckland based glass manufacturer OI.

At each concert the audience is reminded from the stage how important it is to preserve the beautiful location and environment and how recycling helps do this. The Forum promotes recycling under the Love NZ brand as part of a nationwide $3million public place recycling initiative funded by local and central government and the Forum.

John Webber, General Manager of the Glass Packaging Forum said that clear identification of recycling bins is imperative:

“It is an immense undertaking to collect and recycle 35,000 glass bottles from just under 20,000 concertgoers. It’s not enough to install recycling bins, they need to be clearly marked, accessible and then people must be encouraged and even inspired to use the right bins. That’s why using positive endorsement from the Stage is so important. Our message to the audience is simple - we want people to realize that bottles don’t recycle themselves – it takes people to put them in the correct bin.”

“However education takes time. To make sure glass does get recycled after the concert is over the Glass Packaging Forum has organised teams from community groups to separate glass bottles by colour including any that have been left on the ground and put them in the appropriate recycling bins. Our members include wine, beer and soft drinks manufacturers who want to make sure that their products get recycled so we see this as part of our role as an organization.”

“It is disappointing however that the Glass Packaging Forum is the only packaging organization which is committed to increasing public place recycling. We work closely with local councils and community network recyclers and we understand their frustration that the packaging industry as a whole apparently believes that their responsibility for packaging ends at the retailer or is dealt with by the local authority domestic collections . ”

“Because we were concerned about not recycling plastic and cans, this year with funding from the Love NZ campaign, we have also provided recycling bins for plastic and cans and are pleased that we have been able to recover around 5000 cans and a similar number of plastic bottles from the 11 shows. However a disappointingly large number of these mixed recycling bins were heavily contaminated because people are unsure what can be recycled and include cutlery, cups and shrink wrap along with their contents!”

“The Love NZ public place recycling campaign is about installing infrastructure and educating people. Whilst people know what can be recycled at home, it is a different story when they are out and about. We will keep the national message simple and encourage people to recycle their plastic drinks containers and aluminium cans because everyone knows what these are! ”

The MoreFM Winery Tour ends on 5th March at Villa Maria Estate in Auckland.

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