Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has launched beverage container recycling for Westfield Centres at an event held at Bondi Junction Westfield last week (Nov 10).

Peter Garrett with seven shopping trolleys of recyclable material, equating to the amount of material recycled every 10 minutes in Westfield centres across Australia.

Federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, the Hon Peter Garrett, has launched a recycling initiative which, once rolled out nationally, will divert more than 600 tonnes of beverage containers from landfill each year.

Visitors to Westfield shopping centre food courts across Australia will soon be able to recycle their bottles and cans and keep them out of landfill with the introduction of new recycling bins designed for beverage containers.

Westfield will install new recycling systems in up to 35 centres over the next 12 months thanks to a partnership between industry and government under the National Packaging Covenant.

The rollout of this program nationally will mean more than 600 tonnes of bottles and cans will be diverted from landfill every year, that’s equivalent to 150,000 full shopping trolleys. The project will be implemented by either installing new systems or modifying already existing systems with the first phase to be rolled out in selected NSW Westfield centres by June 2010.

Sue O’Malley, Westfield general manager facilities and operations said, “This is an incredibly positive step in streamlining our customer recycling processes in centre. In the past recycling facilities varied from centre to centre, but by rolling out this program our centres will benefit from a more consistent system that will be an across-the-board improvement on current practices”.