The As Zero Waste As Possible (AZWAP) Initiative

It all started when we moved to a new building that didn’t have any recycling facilities. Those of us who were already environmentally conscious were uncomfortable with contributing to landfill with materials that didn’t have to end up there. Just because we were in an office environment, it didn’t mean we couldn’t transfer habits from home to our working lives. 

Over the course of 3 months, we targeted our office habits that produced the most waste. The most notable one was coffee cups and soft plastics. We’re a team of caffeine junkies and mint slice addicts. We made the switch to keep cups and researched ways to responsibly dispose of soft plastics.

Of course, we had more than just paper cups and biscuit packaging. Ultimately, we ended up with 3 ways to divide our recyclable waste:

• Setting aside all recyclables to take to a recycling bin
• Collecting compostable materials in our freezer to be taken to a drop off point
• Collecting soft plastics to be taken to a REDCycle drop off point.

We took all waste to their appropriate local drop off points. Recyclables went to yellow kerbside bins. We were lucky to find a community garden only a short walk away to dispose of our compost. And the local Coles is a participating REDcycle partner! You can find your closest REDcycle bin here. 

Everything else that couldn’t be recycled or taken to drop-off sites, we used as a way to motivate the team to reduce their individual waste. We began a competition using the iconic glass jar challenge. Everyone received a glass jar (reused, of course) and anything that couldn’t be recycled or composted had to go in the jar. The person with the least amount of waste, would be the winner!