In the past several months, Alowishus has further increased its efforts in the recycling arena. We have been trying extra hard to always sing to the tune of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” and have further reduced waste to landfills by two whole industrial bins per week.

That’s a whopping 156 cubic metres a year, NOT going into landfills.

With a saving in waste collection dollars of over $3000, this is great for the Environment AND Alowishus, but not so great for the Waste Collection Company.

How we did this

We have changed many things within our business and in the ways, we work with our local suppliers. Furthermore, we partnered with some great other local businesses to further reduce our waste.

• We’ve partnered with Splitters Farm to collect our food waste.  They have provided us with branded, coloured wheelie bins and collect the scraps daily. Be sure to follow them on insta @splittersfarm
• The team at the Endeavour Foundation are collecting our used coffee grounds for their worm farm and apparently, the worms are LOVING the caffeine
• JJ Richards recycling collects our cardboard for processing twice a week – and BOY! Do we get a lot of cardboard, literally, truckloads of it
• Our daughter Ally collects all the 10c eligible containers that are left at Alowishus (a budding entrepreneur).  She did cash flow projections and with compounding interest factored in, she has calculated she can save $20K by the time she’s 18.  I’ll keep you posted on how that goes!
• We recycle our Honey Pales back to our local supplier, Hummock Honey and he passes them back onto groups for non-food use
• All food pales that come in are given away to people who reuse them for various things, from crafts to water bowls for their animals.
• Our egg trays (and there are loads of them) are taken for all sorts of reasons, from people who have chickens, to kindy classes and musicians attempting to soundproof their studios.
• Our 20-litre drums are also given away for repurposing as they are emptied.
• All eligible plastics are placed into a JJ Richards Co-Mingle recycling bin and are processed back through the Bundaberg Regional Council Waste Management Facility. Milk bottles, cans and dressing bottles are among the bin load of plastics recycled on a weekly basis.
• Doing all of this has reduced the number of garbage bags we use from around 500 a month, down to 300!  And we are still working on reducing further.

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE

Unfortunately the $3000 a year we have saved on waste management will be taken from us by the State Government come the first of July 2019.  The Labor Government are introducing a controversial Waste Management ‘levy’ of $75 per tonne and this is set to increase annually by $5.  This ‘levy’, which in reality is a TAX, is predicted to generate $1.3 billion in revenue, of which a mere $150 million will go into developing Qld’s recycling industries or into helping our environment.

Read State MP David Batt’s address to parliament here

Where is the other $1,150,000,000 ($1.15B) going?  That is the same question I’m asking?

Believe me, I’m all for:

• helping the environment
• recycling
• and improving our waste management

I just don’t think that this so called ‘waste levy’ will be effective in helping the environment, not when less than 10% of it is actually going to the environment.

That’s just my opinion ………

What are your thoughts on the matter?

2018 Cafe of the Year Winners below – To vote for Alowishus Delicious in 2019 click here