Butt out Docklands!
04 Dec 2019
By Janette Corcoran
November saw over 30 Docklanders come together for another local street clean.
This time the group targeted the area between Collins St and Harbour Esplanade.
In just under one hour, the group collected 44 bags (34 of rubbish and 10 of containers) and 3kg of cigarette butts (estimated to be more than 8000!).
Also, three shopping trolleys were retrieved and organised for return.
Most of the litter can be sorted and disposed of straight after the clean-up – recyclables to their collection points and general rubbish to landfill.
But cigarette butts, especially in view of the volume collected, are another matter – as putting several thousand individually into local butt bins would take us a really long time!
Enter the wonderful people at Degraves Street Recycling Facility!
Organised by the City of Melbourne, Love Our Streets (LOS3008) took its first store of cigarette butts – around 14,000 – to Ross Iremonger who had the unenviable job of manually sorting these. The next step is transportation to Terracycle where the organic waste is separated and composted. The remaining plastic is then mixed with both other recycled plastics and virgin plastics to be used in the production of low-grade items such as shipping pellets and bollards.
Perhaps our unwanted cigarette butts could eventually return to Docklands in the form of more attractive bollards!
The final LOS3008 clean for 2019 was with Ocean Crusaders on December 1. The first 2020 LOS3008 clean is scheduled for Sunday, February 16 and we are already looking forward to seeing everyone in the New Year!
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